


Magdalene

by elunablue



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Love at First Sight, May/December Relationship, Memory Loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:33:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 123,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28328304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elunablue/pseuds/elunablue
Summary: "I can imagine a world where my arms are embraced around you.I lie naked and pure with intentions to clench you and take you.The city howls with a cry to seduce you and claim you.So it's time, and it's a sad day for sure."sad day - FKA twigsV for vengeance. V for victory. V for vendetta. V for the kind of retribution that only serves the magnitude of someone else's legacy. Silverhand clawing at her head, Jackie left for dead, Takemura laying in her bed. V for everyone but herself, and as the days go by, she recognizes her own reflection no longer at all. There is a V of less and less significance as time passes, soon to fade to nothing as she is eclipsed by a silver moon to the yellow sun of herself. A shadow hangs in the oblivion of her never-ending nowhere, cast out from her light. How much closer could it be?Complete Post-Heist Rewrite
Relationships: Goro Takemura/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/Female V
Comments: 122
Kudos: 372





	1. I Die For You On My Terms

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by FKA twigs' _Magdalene_ album, and will loosely follow the themes and storyline presented in her music through the lens of V and how she relates to the men in her life, and the struggles she faces while living in the enormity of their inescapable shadows. Anyone I can encourage to listen to this album who hasn't yet, I cannot stress enough how incredible it is. 
> 
> The plot will loosely follow the game, though I am writing based on my memory of when I played through, so forgive me for dialogue changes that reflect my own interpretation of V and my simple forgetting of what exactly was said at what time, or where. I hope you all enjoy. ^_^

_A woman's war  
Unoccupied history  
True nature won't search to destroy  
If it doesn't make sense_

_(Mary Magdalene – FKA twigs)_

**C H A P T E R O N E**

_I Die For You On My Terms_

The inevitable process of the loss of self, it came not all at once.

Time moved slower than falling rain, and life seemed not to continue on as it were just a second before. To wake in relief from a nightmare, such was the moment of being reborn following death.

V walked; forced walking which she could do nothing but concede to, a pair of ghostly legs inside her own taking her away to an unfamiliar place she neither knew nor understood.

She saw herself standing before herself, future and present, coexisting at the same time, in the same place. Her body was frozen and alive at once, unstuck from reality in an unmistakable nowhere. If ever there were time travel, V decided that it wouldn’t be a kind of moving, but a kind of standing still. Time travel by seeing all possible realities at once. All that she was, all that she is, all that she could be. 

When the end came, she used to believe that life would crumble away inside of a whisper.

But it didn’t crumble.

It dissolved with a sigh of relief.

* * * * *

She awoke in her apartment.

Her apartment. _Her_. But, moments ago, she was not _Her_ at all. She was _Him_.

Him. He. His. Somebody who both was and wasn’t _Her_. Somebody within and without, straddling the line between the feminine and the masculine that entwined inside of her body in ways that didn’t register with her as they were dancing together across the synapses of her brain and through her mind.

It had been weeks since last she lay in this bed, beneath these pale white sheets, and yet she struggled to remember why it was that those weeks had passed without her noticing. If she couldn’t remember time, if time was escaping her, what reliability did reality carry anymore?

V stood on shaky legs, walking away from the daybed that had cradled her like a baby in her recovery, a recovery she hadn’t been a conscious participant in as her mental state had been in such tatters that she had barely known she was recovering at all.

She walked to the mirror in the small bathroom just paces to the right and stood unwavering in front of it, momentarily surprised to see who was there. Herself, of course, but for the first time, she didn’t know what that really meant.

The skin of her face was sallow, her eyes empty, briefly terrifying her with the purposelessness they suggested. How quickly excitement could dissipate to give way to nothingness, and she mourned the loss of the last time she'd looked in the mirror and hope was what she saw. When hope was stronger than any pain. When belief was more powerful than any fear.

Though, she felt that somewhere inside, a phantom was lurking in the rafters of her mind, staring at her through her own eyes, and she could only just barely reconcile with it. This shadow that she couldn’t see because her life felt as though it had fallen into the dark, and how could a shadow survive without light?

There had been dreams, those past weeks, about a man; a man she hadn’t known. But the dreams played like distant memories, and when she reflected on them, they recalled to her as nostalgia for a bygone era more than the false imaginings of an addled mind.

There was a sudden song, then, somewhere in the room; a quiet song. An electronic tinkering. With how everything had gone, V assumed immediately that this song existed only in her imagination, though she knew it sounded familiar, and she instinctively took to scanning around the room in search of the source of the strange sound.

Her cellphone was on the coffee table in the connected living room, if it could be called that, and she deduced it as the source of the song. She went to pick it up to find a laundry list of unchecked messages and unanswered phone-calls from a handful of different people blasted across its surface.

The caller I.D. currently headlined across the screen, though, told her that it was a _Takemura_ on the other line awaiting her answer. She didn’t feel that she could recall who this was.

She apprehensively pressed the green answer button and held the phone to her ear.

“Hello?” she asked.

“V?”

She didn’t answer for a moment, hesitating at the sound of her own moniker, though she didn’t mean to.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes. Hello?”

“It is good you are awake and coherent,” the man said. His voice was familiar, a soft accent. Someone who clearly knew English well but perhaps did not speak it often.

V knew this voice. She remembered the sound. It was comforting to recall something, at last, with everything in her mind so fastly fading as of late.

The so-called _Takemura_ of this phone call continued after a brief pause. “There had been times these past weeks that we feared your return was impossible,” he admitted.

V stalled momentarily, her brain looping in tight knots. “Who is this?” she asked, though she wished she didn’t have to. It felt embarrassing to not remember someone who so clearly knew who _she_ was.

This Takemura did not make any sound in response for a brief pause. V wondered if he was still there, though barely only a few seconds must have passed.

“We should not talk long over the phone,” he finally said, exasperation hinted. V could imagine him making suspicious eyes around himself wherever he was. “I am waiting at the restaurant called Tom’s Diner this morning. If you are willing, I would like to meet with you here, in person.”

He didn’t answer her question of his identity, but she was quietly relieved that he’d had no reaction to her dumbfounded confusion as to who at all was calling her in the first place.

“I don’t remember where…” she said, thinking on this ‘Tom’s Diner’. “I don’t know if I can…how do I get there?”

“If you are struggling with your memory,” Takemura said, “then it may be unsafe for you to operate a vehicle. I can arrange for someone to pick you up. But you must make haste.”

“Oh,” V said quietly, “but I don’t…I don’t understand.”

“I can explain to you whatever you would like if you would please meet with me.” He paused. V listened to the hesitant silence that ensued, impeded only by Takemura’s near silent breathing. “I implore you,” he continued. “I would not ask this of you if it were not pertinent to our continued survival. We have so very little time.”

“Okay.” V nodded in understanding, though this wouldn’t matter as Takemura could not see her anyway. “Okay…I’ll meet you. But I don’t think I can remember how to get there. I don’t even remember a Tom’s Diner. I mean, maybe…maybe a little.”

“I will call for a taxi to pick you up from your building. Please ensure that you make your way downstairs safely to the vehicle in time. I will be waiting.”

The line went off and silence filled the gaps. He was gone. And though he was never there physically in the room with V to begin with, she was suddenly aware of the loneliness and solitude of her apartment all at once.

 _Takemura_. 

A familiarity resonated there, with him. Hands held warmly over her own as she slept. A man seated worriedly at the foot of her bed as bright lights shone down on her face. Pain. Blood. A calming voice in the darkness. 

She hesitated with the phone in her hand for a moment, looking down at the banner across the screen which read her the number of missed calls and messages. She placed it back on the table, face down, as if doing so would make all of her neglected responsibilities disappear if she couldn’t see them begging for her attention.

Returning to the bathroom sink, she looked to a yellow sticky note pressed to the upper left corner. V grabbed the edge of the paper with her fingertips and read:

_V – remember that you don’t have to suffer through this if you don’t want to. I left your medicine in the cabinet. – Misty_

Opening the door of the mirror, inside, there were the two large pill bottles that Misty had left there days prior. V had nearly forgotten them entirely, but the note had helped. Maybe she could ask Misty to leave reminder notes all over her apartment.

V grabbed one of the bottles and closed the mirror cabinet, its hinges silent. Its surface now reflected a man standing behind her who hadn't been there before.

V turned quickly and dropped the pills on the floor to which they bumped around inside the bottle upon landing, then rolled across the bathroom tile over to the man’s shoes. He knelt to pick them up and regarded them with a scandalized grin plastered on his face.

“You’ll have to try harder than this to get rid of me,” he said, reading the label and turning the bottle around in his hands.

“Try h-harder than what?” V stammered, her hands out behind her and braced on the bathroom sink for stability.

“These pills,” he said, shaking them by his ear mockingly. “They don’t do shit.”

Johnny Silverhand – his silver hand self-explanatory and on full display in glimmers beneath the light of her bathroom – stood before her, back against the wall.

The memory of Johnny, his existence, returned to her at the sight of him. Their last (well, their _first and only)_ meeting had begun and ended traumatically, her psyche wiping away the idea of him immediately following to protect her fragile mind from retaining significant emotional damage.

She frowned, releasing her grip on the sink, knuckles white, and crossed her arms across her chest. 

“You hit me,” she said, recalling the first night they had awoken in the same body. 

He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes rolling. “Yeah…sorry ‘bout that.”

“No, you aren’t,” she said weakly, turning away and walking out of the bathroom. He was inside her mind. She knew what he did or didn’t feel. And sorry was certainly not in there anywhere.

“You hit me and you tried to kill me,” she said, sitting down on the edge of her couch, reaching for a glass of water from the coffee table that had long since been left there.

“And I said I was sorry.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Just now. Five seconds ago. And I don’t accept your apology. Because I know you don’t mean it.”

He crossed the room and flopped roughly onto the couch seat beside her, leaning on his left hand to keep his head up. “Eh, who means apologies these days anyways?” He flicked open an auto magazine V had been reading a few weeks ago and had left on the couch.

“Hm…didn’t expect you to have stuff like this,” he said, brow raised. He flicked the pages dramatically. “Not so heavy on the reading, but, slick pictures. Used to have a bike like this, myself.”

V snatched the magazine from beneath his hands and held it to her chest. It had been Jackie’s; something he’d left there a long while ago. She pressed her lips against the edge of the pages and took a deep breath, closing her eyes. “Don’t touch my things,” she ordered. “Ever.”

She stood from her seat and stalked into her storage room, placing the magazine on a high shelf with some other forgotten things of Jackie’s which she had hidden in there to help herself to not think about him. She gently pressed her forehead to the wall beside the doorway and breathed in and out for a few moments’ peace before returning to the main room.

Johnny was back in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the sink and thumbing over the pill bottle again. “If I can perform a concert at the Viper Room tripped on benzos and meth,” he said, “surely you wouldn’t believe some hippie concoction would fix your chronic hallucinations.”

V shook her head. “This isn’t happening.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “This isn’t real. You’re not real. I’m already dead. I’m dead and I’m stuck in purgatory.”

She sat back down on the couch and put her head to her knees.

Johnny, appearing suddenly behind her, flicked his middle finger at the back of her head, but she barely flinched. “Seems pretty real to me,” he said. “Maybe you’re the hallucination and I’m the one havin’ a fuckin’ crazy ride right about now. Fuck, man.”

V stood again to retreat from his incessant pestering. "I have somewhere to be," she said. "And you're not invited." She crossed to grab her coat from where it was hung beside the front door, shrugged it onto her shoulders, and headed out into the hallway.

* * * * * 

“We cannot speak long,” Takemura said, gesturing to the seat across from him at Tom's Diner as V approached upon arrival.

V slipped inside along the glossy red plastic. She placed her hands in clasp upon the table, then removed them and let them fall to her lap, then finally settled on laying them flat upon the table’s surface. Takemura watched her fidgeting in somewhat spiteful confusion.

“I have to be honest,” she said, leaning slightly towards him and lowering her voice as though revealing a pertinent secret. She rested her left knuckles against her cheek and peered up at him through her lashes. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

“You are on a lot of pain killers,” Takemura said, leaning away from her where she had closed the distance, which would have made her feel insecure at her own apparent repulsiveness if she hadn’t been so out of it. “This is understandable.”

V stared down at the table, her eyes following the ouroboros ring of a coffee mug stain, around and around it went, never ending. She traced it with her right hand as she leaned into her left. “I don’t remember anything,” she said quietly.

“Your memory should recover in no time,” he said, hands cupped loosely around a white porcelain mug that steamed upwards. He had ordered her the same before she had arrived.

He hadn’t taken a drink from his yet, but he held it. V glanced at this in a secretness she hoped he wouldn’t notice. He held, but didn’t drink. The warmth must comfort him, she thought. The metallic lines of his cybernetics traced along his finger bones like careful tattoos splayed across the skin. There was a gentleness there, a particular beauty in the artistry of finely-tuned cybernetics. These were surely of a price that was far beyond the likes she had ever known.

Beside their table, to the right and mounted upon the wall, a television was playing the morning news. Nothing interesting, as usual; Gillean Jordan lamenting on and on about her usual soulless media coverage of some unfortunate occurrence in the city.

“Your friends have taken good care of you,” Takemura said, though he faded off, distracted. Someone passed by the window in an Arasaka uniform, and he watched them without turning his head. V took a small sip of her coffee.

Takemura shifted his body nonchalantly to the right, towards that window, in what V could only assume was a guarded attempt to survey the perimeter. If they were to be attacked here, surely it would matter not what preparations they made. They would be dead long before they could even spend a moment hoping to stay alive. 

“You were in a low-level coma for three weeks,” he said softly, returning his attention to her, though half his mind still seemed on guard. His tone was intentionally level to wrap that difficult information in a gentle cradle. “We were in the care of your ripperdoc, Viktor, for most of that time. We owe our recovery to him, though I would not consider you recovered, by far.” He paused, eyes taking a quick glance across the portion of her which was visible over the table. “In fact, I might concede to assume the opposite; that you grow worse with each passing day.”

V ran her thumb along to edge of her own mug, feeling the slight smudge of her lip balm present there. “You assume right…then,” she said. “I can’t say that…that I’ve ever felt worse.”

“Then the Relic is already withering away at your genetic code, overwriting it.” He took a drink of his coffee and flicked his eyes out the window again. “I know very little of it. The Arasakas were a private people, more than anyone else I have known. They would not allow intimate details of their projects to slip to someone as…” He paused, considering his next words carefully. “Insignificant…as me.” He took another sip.

V wondered if he would have called himself this before Yorinobu had ruthlessly cast him out from Arasaka and stripped him of his cybernetics. For as much as V’s world had changed that day in the tower, so had Takemura’s. Their lives had become entwined by fates that neither could have predicted, their destructions coming to them at the same time by ripples in a sequence of events that were unpredictable and chaotic.

Somehow, V believed that Takemura may be the only person who could know how she felt right now. And yet he held it together so well.

“Are you okay?” V asked, suddenly, and Takemura reacted with genuine surprise, which he quickly masked.

“I am fine,” he said. “You need not worry about how I am doing. You are the one we must keep alive. You are the one who must be _fine_.”

“I didn’t mean…” V swallowed. “I didn’t mean...in a life-or-death way. I just meant…are you okay? In general.”

Takemura looked at her blankly for a moment, a crease between his brow. V waited, though he remained quietly considering her words.

“Yes,” he said carefully, not breaking eye-contact. “I am okay.”

V took a sip from her drink. “Good,” she said with a slight nod. “That’s good to hear. I’m glad.”

Takemura’s shoulders fell slightly, an imperceivable tension falling from them, one V had not known he held prior. “I am also glad…that you are okay.”

The two of them lingered for a beat on one another before each took a sip from their coffees, eyes turning elsewhere.

To their right, the news on the TV changed from its previous story to a clip of Yorinobu at a recent press conference. Takemura’s ears perked up at the sound of his former boss’s son’s voice, and he turned in his seat at their booth to face the screen.

“He is a liar,” Takemura said, spite on his tongue like poison. “How they cannot see this…I cannot understand. He was never good at telling stories, but posturing…he is a master. It is no wonder he turned on Saburo-sama. It was only a matter of time.”

“Do you think they already know where we are?” V asked, quieting her voice in the case they had been followed somehow.

“Quite likely,” he said, eyes not leaving the screen. “That they have not attacked yet means that our current status as fugitives aids them. I am unsure how I am to be feeling of this.”

V looked away from the TV and down at her cup again. A thought struck. “Takemura…” she said. “If you had known that I was there that night, in Yorinobu’s room…” She bit at the skin on the inside of her bottom lip. “Would you have killed me?”

Takemura turned away from the television to look at her, yet she could not read his face; his mind still lurking elsewhere, on the TV, on their safety.

“Without hesitation,” he said.

“Ah.” V swallowed. “I see.”

Takemura reached his left hand out then, and briefly ran the tips of his fingers over her own as she held the handle of her mug. “But do not take this as a personal offense,” he said. “It was my duty to protect Saburo-sama. I would not have killed you gladly. Killing is never a happiness.”

“What if you had to now?" she asked cautiously. "Now that you know who I am?”

“Things have changed,” he said, pulling his hand away. “Perhaps forever. I cannot say what I would or wouldn’t do, because all that I am knowing is that…life will not go on the way it used to.”

He regarded her response at his non-answer, and V’s chest was heavy. Even the person who should have been her closest forced ally at this point was not entirely on her side.

Takemura retreated his hands from the table entirely and stood, removing himself from the tense situation. V watched him.

“I will contact you with more information as soon as I am able,” he said. “Please remain in a way in which I can easily contact you should I need your assistance. We are the only two people in this godforsaken city who can help each other. I hope you understand that I need you as much as you need me. I will be in touch.”

V nodded to acknowledge their parting, and yet Takemura lingered for a moment. He opened his mouth to speak but closed it once more.

“V,” he said. “No. No, I would not do the same now.”

She nodded at him with tight lips, and he nodded back before turning to walk in the opposite direction, pausing briefly to speak with the owner, Tom, behind the counter, and then continuing on his way.

As Takemura crossed the threshold of the diner back out onto the streets of Night City, V watched him pass by the window and disappear from view beyond what she could see. He did not look at her as he left, but… _no_ , she hadn’t been expecting him to.

From across the black and white linoleum of the diner’s floor, the sound of boots piloted by heavy feet swaggered towards her. Johnny flopped into the seat across from her, where Takemura had been; his presence a significant downgrade from her previous company.

“God, that fucker can talk.” He put his boots up on the table and crossed his legs, his hands going up behind his head. He blew out a strong breath towards the ceiling, intentionally expressing his annoyance. “Thought he’d never leave.”

V looked down at the mug in her hands. The thought of coffee at the moment was nauseating, but the comfort of the warmth on her palms was the only thing she had right now. She hadn’t been able to stomach much of anything in a while, and even if her physical health returned to normal, her mind may still remain unable to tolerate the unfortunate dietary options of Night City.

“What do you want?” V asked, near silently, and not looking at him on purpose. She didn’t want to give in to his will. 

“That’s quite a thing to ask someone,” he said. “What if I don’t know what I want? What do _you_ want?”

“I want you to not fight me,” V said quietly. “I want to understand. I want to go home. I want to remember the things I’ve forgotten. I want…I want…” She pressed the back of her hand to her lips and fixed her eyes on the table. “I want to take back what I did. And I want to say that I’m sorry. That I’m _so_ sorry.”

“You’re apologizing?” he asked, his tone hesitant and gentle in surprise. She had not heard him speak that way before.

“I know you don’t want to be here,” she said with a shake of her head, still unable to look at him. “I know that’s something you _don’t_ want.”

Johnny sighed and took his sunglasses off, toying with them in his hands as he bent the arms of the frame in front of him on the table. “Well…that’s one thing we can agree on,” he said.

V looked around the room and watched the diner’s customers go about their morning separate from her. To be so close to people whose lives seemed so untethered to responsibility. Maybe they would go to work from here, maybe they would meet someone in the park for a date, maybe they would return home to their families. She wished that she could fade away into the shoes of someone else – anyone else – around her, and become at one with the ease of walking away.

She had never seen Johnny without his eyes covered, and she spared a single short glance towards him as he sat across from her. He was already looking at her, so she was unable to hide the fact that she had intentionally looked at him. He paid no mind to this, to her relief, but he replaced the glasses on his face and pushed them up the bridge of his nose.

“And, just so you know,” Johnny said, and V returned her attention to the splinter in her hand that was sitting across the booth. “When you talk out loud to me? People notice. And they’re not looking at me.”

“Oh…” V said, looking down at the table, at her hands, and her cheeks flushed. Everything was so overwhelming that she hadn’t actually considered that. She felt embarrassed that it hadn’t crossed her mind.

* * * * *

V walked away from Tom’s Diner a short while later, Takemura having already covered the bill before he’d left, as V came to learn when she’d attempted to pay upon leaving herself. V held her hands in her pockets, a summery California day and yet she felt so cold. Johnny walked beside her, a self-righteous swagger in his step that left nothing to be desired.

“Let’s talk to some more women,” he said, putting his metallic arm around her shoulders. It felt mortally crushing. “Three fucking weeks and it’s been too much of a sausage-fest around here. What about that little thing that came ‘round before…” He snapped his fingers in recollection. “What was her name, again? Millie? Minnie?”

“Her name is Misty,” V corrected. “And I’m sure she’s busy. She has bigger things to worry about than us, right now.”

“Oh?” Johnny quirked up, tightening his grip on her body as they walked. V stumbled as he crushed their bodies together and practically picked her up on accident from sheer force of his cyber-arm being stronger than her entire body.

“So,” he said, “what you’re saying is that there’s an ‘us’ now? What happened to the little girl who didn’t want anything to do with me from before?”

“No, not us,” V corrected, but with an unmistakable fumble of her words. “Just…me. But we’re both me. Hm.”

They crossed the street quickly and headed down the opposite side of the road. V didn’t know where she was going, but she couldn’t stand still, and she didn’t want to go home yet. She hadn’t been out on her own in weeks, and maybe she shouldn’t have been out loose on the streets with no supervision, but, nobody had offered. Johnny didn’t count.

“Where was I?” V asked, suddenly. Johnny looked down at her, releasing his grip on her, to which she shook out her shoulders lightly, trying not to seem so obviously crushed by his strength, and then grabbed her left elbow with her right hand shyly.

“Where were you…what?” he asked, shoving his thumbs into the pockets of his pants.

“When I died…” V treaded carefully, jumping across stones of thoughts in her mind. “Where was I? I was somewhere. I know it. And then I wasn’t.”

Johnny said nothing. He chewed his phantom bottom lip, and V felt the vague ghost of a bite on her own lip, like a memory. The coconut of her lip balm seemed apparent to both of them, in theory. Johnny folded his arms across his chest, drumming his righthand fingers upon his upper left arm.

“I miss that place,” she said.

The streets around them smelled like artificial soymeat grilling on a barbeque wafting out from the patio of an open floor-plan restaurant nearby. V took a deep breath and considered all that she had missed in the time since she’d been gone.

“You miss being dead?” Johnny asked without thinking. V knew that it was without thinking because somehow his thinking was her own. His every thought spread across her mind like a misty sprinkler watering a greenhouse of vegetables, a kind of muted word shower that her brain thirsted for. His brain. Her brain.

His.

“Don’t you?” she asked carefully, not looking at anything in particular and quickening her steps through a particularly difficult crowd. Johnny hooked his finger into a loop of her jean skirt as she moved to keep them together – not that they could ever actually be apart.

When they were able to stand beside one another again, Johnny shrugged carelessly, though V could feel that he was not so careless as he aimed to project. “I don’t think I ever was dead,” he said.

She remained very quiet, then, and focused entirely on navigating through the nameless people of those early morning streets. There was a kind of hiddenness in the crowd, a kind of being able to disappear, to become nothing when so many were bustling around her.

So many mornings spent making this same walk, from Tom’s Diner, were returning. She had trouble even recalling the restaurant’s name when she awoke, and now she felt foolish to have forgotten it at all. Jackie and her had eaten there nearly everyday one month in early spring, where afterwards they would take a walk around the city to talk about anything except mercenary work for a few quiet moments of their lives.

Her memories – _hers_ …not Johnny’s – were crawling carefully back to their home in her mind, but somehow, they now felt artificial, crafted; inhuman. She was coming back into herself now, with time, but nothing could ever be what it was before, and she would have to accept this new reality.

“Still in there somewhere, V?” Johnny interrupted her silence. She looked to him to see that his arms were crossed as they walked. He often did this. Crossed his arms. A way to keep them separate. To say that even though they may forcibly share one mind, she could not get close to him unless he said so. She didn’t want to anyway.

“V,” Johnny repeated the letter. “V, V, V.” He tested it carefully like wine, checking the parts that made up her nickname. “ _V for Vendetta_ , right? That movie’s fucking sick.” He nodded his head to himself. “But you probably haven’t seen it. Before your time.”

“I’ve seen it,” V said quickly, though she regretted playing into his obvious bait for mocking.

“Well la-di-da,” he said, and rolled his eyes. He rubbed the back of his neck, a phantom crick it in that V immediately felt on her own, to which she avoided acknowledging, as it meant paying notice of their inherent physical connection.

“Anyway…” he said with an obvious sigh. He looked to the sky briefly, gazing through the space between his brow and sunglasses. “Sunny day today.”

He disappeared from her right suddenly and V turned her head to see where he had gone, but he was no longer beside her. She stopped walking, and the crowd consumed her. Somehow the loss of his invisible presence made the people surrounding her feel that much more all-consuming. Even if he wasn’t real, he seemed to part the pathway of bodies with his confidence. But now, he was gone in an instant. He was gone from everywhere. 

She walked home alone.


	2. Don't Tell Me What You Want 'Cause I Know You'll Lie

**C H A P T E R T W O**

_Don’t Tell Me What You Want ‘Cause I Know You’ll Lie_

Her morning began with her phone vibrating frantically from its place atop the radiator near the bed. It clacked and buzzed against the metal and reverberated loudly enough to be felt through the floor as she awoke and placed her feet onto the carpet.

______

_3 UNREAD MESSAGES_

**From: Takemura** 😱

 _V, are you awake?_ [7:47 AM]

 _I need to speak with you._ [7:55 AM]

 _At your earliest convenience._ [8:08 AM]

______

“Gross, don’t answer him.”

Johnny appeared on the couch, cigarette hanging from his lips as he cupped his hands around a lighter and held it to his face. He took a long drag and blew it out deliberately, flicking the lighter shut with a metallic clack and pocketing it. His boots were up on the coffee table, legs crossed lazily at the ankle.

“He seems desperate,” he said, nodding over at V with her phone in her hands. “‘At your earliest convenience.’ Ugh. Who does he think he is? Don’t let him tell you what to do.”

“He wasn’t telling me to do anything,” V said. “He just asked.”

“Uh-huh. First it’s ‘I need to speak with you at your earliest convenience’, then it’s ‘Just one more favor’, and then _BAM_ , you’re slipping around in your own intestines on the floor of Arasaka’s Headquarters and walking out with your tail between your legs. Nope. Don’t fucking buy it. And you’re dumber than you look if you do. And you do look pretty damn goofy, so that’s really saying something.”

“He’s in just as much trouble as I am,” V said calmly, not willing to let Johnny bait her like a fool into unnecessary tension between them. “I don’t think he’d make me slip around in my own intestines.”

“I don’t know, V. Arasaka are crazy sadist sons of bitches.” Johnny sucked in on the cigarette and let the smoke pour out the side of his lips. “I’m sure their basements are flooded with bodies.”

“Well, Takemura isn’t an Arasaka,” V said, “so I think my organs are safe. And besides, even if he did make me slip around in my own intestines, I think he’d ask nicely first. And say sorry afterwards. So I mean, I might die, but only if I’m murdered by his politeness.”

Johnny stubbed out his cigarette into a glass of water on the coffee table, but the imaginary ashes disappeared instantly instead of floating to the bottom. “He may not be blood Arasaka, but he’s as close as anybody can get. I’d say it’s the same fucking thing. No difference. A snake is a snake is a snake…is a snake. Or whatever.” He shook his head. “You know what I mean.”

“Yorinobu turned on him immediately,” V reminded. “Takemura isn’t protected at all. He’s in just as much danger as I am. Probably more. I’m not afraid of him.” She paused, considering whether or not to add her next thought. “If anything, I’m afraid _for_ him.” She looked down at the carpet beneath her bare feet, thinking of the way the cloth felt on her soles.

“What?” Johnny scoffed. “Got a soft spot for the old man? Jesus, V, you’re better than that. He’s playin’ you like a fuckin’ fiddle, and you’re singing his praises already.”

“I didn’t praise him at all,” she said. “I just said…” She swallowed. “I just said that I was worried. Wouldn’t you be worried for another person in need?”

“Only person in need is this guy.” He shoved two thumbs in his own direction. “I need a shot, I need about three lines of sweet china white, and a hooker. Two hookers. No, three hookers. Can we get some?”

V shook him off with no response, instead returning her attention to the unanswered messages waiting in her hands.

______

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _I’m awake._ [8:27 AM]

 _Sorry for the wait. What did you need?_ [8:28 AM]

 **From: Takemura** 😱

 _There is a bridge near the Cherry Blossom market in Japantown._ [8:31 AM]

 _Can you be there by 9:30 this morning?_ [8:33 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Yes, I can be there._ [8:34 AM]

 **From: Takemura** 😱

 _Good._ [8:34 AM]

______

V waited a moment to see if there would be anything else, but nothing came through. He had no need to text her further, but V received so precious few these days that any miniscule amount of conversation would have given her immense joy.

She exited the thread with Takemura and considered deleting it in precaution, but decided against it. Though it may have been dangerous to keep such texts around which revealed their communications, V had come to realize the value of an undeleted text in the event of unforeseen circumstances.

Her thread with Jackie scrolled upwards for months back, and now that he was gone, perhaps those texted words exchanged through the phone were all that remained of her best friend in the world. Somehow, he could speak from beyond the grave the words he’d left her with. And if she deleted them, she would be effectively deleting _him_.

If his ghost could live inside her phone, then it would be a warmer home than any other. And so long as she could still call him up and leave a voicemail, a hello and a goodbye from her to him every single time, then she would have to be happy enough. A home for his memory inside her heart.

V placed her phone gently down onto her bed and walked into the bathroom where she reached into the shower, turned the water on, and left it to warm up. From her closet, she retrieved a set of clothes for the day and then went to remove her earrings and place them in a dish on the bathroom sink. Her eyes briefly flicked up to where Johnny appeared in the reflection of the mirror.

“You’re showering for this guy?” he asked, lingering around the corner of the opened bathroom door. V ignored him and hit the button on the wall to close the door, blocking him on the opposite side, even though literally speaking, he could never be blocked. He reappeared inside.

“Did you think that would keep me out?” he asked, leaning against the wall facing the mirror.

“No,” V said. “But I hoped you’d get the message.”

“And what’s that?”

“That I’d like to be alone. If I can’t even have privacy in my own bathroom…then what do I have?”

“Well, I don’t think that’s up to you to decide, V. Remember that you’re more than just you. You’re me, too. And if I have to put up with Mister Dreamy with the salt-and-pepper hair going on and on about fucking _who knows_ , then I'm not just gonna lay down and let you get us killed.”

“I wouldn’t call him that…” V said, looking down at the sink. “Why do you have to mock me?”

“Because it’s _so_ fucking easy,” he said. “God, V. I don’t know. Because you’re easy to pick at. Because it’s fun. Because I’m mean. What do you want me to say?”

“Go, Johnny,” she said. “Just…go.”

She expected him to stay, to spite her, but he disappeared from where she had been watching him in the mirror. 

These days, V feared showering. If Johnny truly was always with her, could he watch her in her most private moments? Was he living them at the same time that she was? Perhaps she would consider keeping a bathing suit on just in case, though changing into it would still require her to be nude for a few short moments where he would be able to see her. This dilemma would be difficult to endure. 

She showered as quickly as possible, the thought of eyes on her never leaving the forefront of her mind, and quickly redressed upon getting out. When she re-emerged from the bathroom, steam releasing from the small space as the door was opened, she found Johnny sitting on the couch. 

“Do you think I’m not in this for the two of us?” he asked. “Huh? I bet I’m deeper in this than you are, and I’d put money on it.”

“Everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie,” V said, walking over to her bed and placing her pajamas which she had changed out of onto her pillow. “All you do is talk circles. You just like to hear your own voice.”

“Oh?” Johnny taunted, appearing in front of her, hands flying to his waist. “Is that so?”

“I don’t know you at all,” V said, dodging him and attempting to move around the obstacle he posed. “And yet you get to live in my body.”

Johnny rolled his eyes and pursed his lips, tongue moving behind his upper lip over his front teeth. “You say that like I fucking love it in here. Like I’m _so_ happy about it. Jesus Christ, V, this ain’t no walk in the park for me. Being you fucking sucks. You get mad when I’m here, you don’t like when I speak, you hate my opinions, and I can’t even hang out with you, earnest friend to friend, when you’re in the shower? I just don’t think this is a give-and-take, V. I need fucking 50-50 from you.” 

“Thanks,” V said flatly, grabbing her car keys from the dish on her bedside table, paying him no mind and not looking at him. “Means a lot.” She leaned down to get her sneakers from beneath the bed and slipped them on speedily over her socks. 

Johnny, certainly not liking to be ignored, of course, reappeared in front of her as she tried to move away from him, and each time she turned, he popped up in front of her again. He blocked her by stepping to the left and right to stop her from getting by.

“If you think that two-piece suit won’t sell you out to the first Arasaka son of a bitch who comes crawling back to him, then you’ve got another thing comin’, V. You’re smarter than this.” He tapped his boot on the ground impatiently. “Actually, you’re not. But you need to be.”

“ _Johnny_.” V put her hands up level to his chest, and didn’t touch him, but ushered his body away by gesturing him backwards. “I might be dead tomorrow,” she said. “If my last memories are of spending time with someone who doesn’t want me dead, and _that’s_ their best quality, then it’ll be more than you’ve ever done for me.”

Johnny dropped his arms to his side and stepped away from her. He looked down at the floor. “I don’t want you dead.”

V put her coat on at the door, opening it and stopping in the doorway, one foot in and one foot out. She wouldn’t look at him as he lingered behind her inside the apartment.

“And yet you’re killing me all the time.”

* * * * *

Leaning against a railing overlooking the streets below, Takemura waited for V near Jig-Jig Street, which was effectively the red-light district of Japantown. As she approached him apprehensively across the bridge, he must have noticed her out of the corner of his eye, as he turned to face her while she walked.

Johnny appeared in front of her there on the bridge, hands on his hips, but she passed by him with no acknowledgement. Takemura made a slight questioning face at the strange U-shaped path she took, but if he did notice, he said nothing of it.

“V.” Takemura bowed his head slightly in greeting and the two of them lingered momentarily on sight of the other, unsure how properly to greet someone they barely knew and yet shared such an important connection with. “It is good to see you again.”

“You saw me yesterday,” V said with a small smile. “Missed me already?”

In the back of her mind, she could feel the devil on her shoulder scoff. Surely Johnny would be crossing his arms and rolling his eyes if she could see him. But, now that she thought of it, if she wasn’t looking at him, and she was the only person who was able to see him, was he still there?

“When our lives are on the line as they are,” Takemura said, “each day that comes is a treasured gift.”

“That’s why they call it the present,” V added.

“What?”

“The present,” she repeated, though less confidently as before. She smiled awkwardly. “Because present is another word for gift. The present is a gift. Sorry…just silly.”

“Ah.” Takemura smiled. “I understand.”

He stepped away from the railing where he’d been waiting and gestured to the walkway behind him. “Would you take a walk with me?”

“Called me here for just a walk?” V asked, brow raised and a smile unable to be stopped upon her face.

Takemura hesitated a moment, and V wondered if he hadn’t expected her to question him. “I would like you to show me around,” he said. “I do not know this city. And if I am to stay here, I would like to be well-acquainted to my surroundings.”

“Oh,” V said in surprise. It didn’t seem like a strong enough reason to risk their lives being in the same location, but she said nothing of this. “Okay.”

Takemura smiled lightly and stepped away from her front to her side, looking towards the shopping district ahead of them. V nodded and the two of them walked together away from the bridge.

“How does your memory fare?” Takemura asked, touching his right temple once in gesture of her own.

“Better, now,” she said. “I’m feeling a little bit more like myself. Not completely, but…a little. May I...ask you something?”

“Yes, V?”

“What was your job like, with Arasaka?”

“It was as any job,” he began. “Something of necessity, and not always of joy, but which provided me with opportunities in my life that I would otherwise have never known.”

“Did you travel much?”

“I traveled as Saburo-sama required. And wherever he went, I followed. It was a simple life, at his side. I always knew what my purpose was, and I think that there was a great life to have been lived that way. I never wondered what I was to be doing, because my presence at his side was one of greatest duty and honor. It is important to have something in your life that is to be your role. I was good at this role.”

“The lack of personal choice, though,” V said, “did it not feel restrictive?”

“Is this all that Americans care about? Freedom?” He scoffed. “What good is freedom if you are a slave to the nothingness? Freedom without responsibility is not free at all. Is a poor man free simply because he can choose what to do with his time?”

“But at least that poor man has a choice.”

“People here have no set roles. They have no path. I was told what I would be and I be it. I am happy to know that I am needed.” He stopped. Hesitated. “That I… _was_ needed.”

V didn’t press on this, an obvious wound still bleeding out in her companion. He may put on a show of stoic strength, but it was clear that the man was hurting, perhaps severely. And he did not seem to be the sort of person who would ask for help, so V wasn’t sure if help was what she should offer him. 

“Did you know that everyone at Arasaka is trained in special chopstick maneuvers?” he asked, tone shifted to one of a softer variety. “I can take down an army of men with only one pair between my fingers.”

“Really?” V asked.

“No.”

V laughed. “I didn’t realize men trained to kill could tell jokes.” 

In her head, she felt Johnny fume again. It burned like deep red spreading across her brain.

 ** _‘Stop_** _flirting,’_ he thought.

 _‘I am not flirting,’_ she forced back to him, shutting him out as best she could by imagining her words as a heavy wave that could wash Johnny away _. ‘I’m just being friendly. You should try it sometime.’_

The two of them passed beneath the cherry blossom trees in the center of the area, making their way past the booths scattered all around them. 

“This place was my mom's favorite in the whole city,” V said, looking up as they walked. “She loved the trees…even if the flowers are just holograms.”

She reached up and ran her fingers along the data of a flower above her, its petals not resisting the touch, her hand passing straight through them like water.

Takemura watched her, and asked gently, “What was your mother’s name?”

V dropped her hand from the flowers and crossed her arms protectively over her chest. “I…don’t know if I feel comfortable sharing. I don’t feel like it’s my place to…to share her story.”

Takemura hummed faintly, nodding. “But, if not you, then who?” he asked.

V considered this silently, but said nothing.

“If it is any consolation,” Takemura continued, “I must be honest with you that I already know your mother’s name. Before I was relieved of my service, Arasaka provided to me your entire personal history – or at the very least, those details which have been recorded by public record.”

V stopped walking, and stepped aside to lean against a tree. The market around them was nearly too loud to speak, even standing as close to one another as they were, so Takemura had to step quite close to her to remain in earshot.

“And what did those details tell you?” she asked, keeping enough of a distance to ensure her safety if this should be the moment that this otherwise peaceful interaction fell apart entirely.

Takemura regarded her expression with apprehension, and then spoke, words slow and methodical, “That you have slipped beneath the radar of the law in spite of your hands being found in unscrupulous places. That you are as much an outsider in this city as you are beating as one with its very soul.” He gave her a moment to consider what he had said, before ending with, “That you have been lonely for a very long time.”

Her heart loomed inside, weighed down at his words. She released a tension in her shoulders which she hadn’t known she’d been holding and pressed her fingernails against the insides of her palms absentmindedly. The slight pain was comforting. 

“Those are heavy assumptions to make from just my personal record,” she said. “From things you’ve read in a file, before you ever met me.”

Takemura raised his brow. “But was I incorrect?” he asked.

“No.” V shifted impatiently from one foot to the other as they stood. “But that doesn’t make it right, either.”

“Then what would?”

She swallowed thickly. “Ask me what I think of Arasaka.”

Takemura opened his mouth lightly. “V, why would I – ”

_“Ask me.”_

His eyes scanned her face, corner to corner, eyes to nose to lips, and back again, all in a momentary hesitation. He was looking for what her play was, what hand she was holding in the game.

“What do you think of Arasaka, V?”

She made eye-contact with him, as deliberate as possible, something she rarely felt able to do with anyone, and said, “I think that if Arasaka tower went up in flames tomorrow, I would laugh.”

They stood silent, then, all activity around them melting together into some kind of strange here-and-now, a fast and slow meshing of everything their brains were registering as external stimuli but their hearts were ignoring.

“You know my mother’s name,” V said. “Do you know what happened to her?”

“Yes.”

“Then say it.”

“She passed from cancer.”

“No. She didn’t.”

“Her medical records were incorrect?”

“No,” V said. “They were right. She did have cancer. But it wasn’t what killed her. My mother worked at an Arasaka manufacturing plant in Watson for twelve years.” V breathed deeply out and looked at the ground, pushing a rock around beneath her shoe. “And the unregulated chemicals that Arasaka dumped on the grounds gave half the workers leukemia. I watched her fall apart right in front of me and there was nothing I could do. We couldn’t afford healthcare, I mean, we could barely afford our apartment.”

She walked away from the tree, then, and melded herself back into the crowd. Takemura followed, stuck close at her side.

“To keep us silent about what they’d done,” she continued, “Arasaka threatened our family with a criminal defamation lawsuit and forced us into silence. They took _everything_ from us. Not that we had much to begin with as it was.”

V paused as they were forced to walk single-file up a staircase onto a walkway that headed above the market, the cherry blossom trees staying behind as they made their way above. She settled again in an alcove of the walkway where fewer people were, and leaned against the banister to overlook the bustle of the market.

“My mother committed suicide to take the financial burden off of our family,” she said, looking out at nothing in particular, looking but not really seeing. “I don’t care if Saburo Arasaka himself was directly responsible for her death or not. That doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that the men with money lined in their pockets sat in an office eating expensive business lunches and laughing while my mother died in her hospital bed alone.”

She turned to him and leaned her lower back against the banister, arms crossed.

“So that is what I’ll do,” she said. “When Arasaka falls, I will laugh. And the circle will be unbroken.”

“V, I-I do not know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything.” She looked at the ground. “I just hope you know that, if it comes to it, I can’t be on Arasaka’s side. I can’t. And if that means we can’t work together, then I’m sorry.”

Takemura leaned against the banister in the same manner she had, his own arms crossed in mimic of hers.

“I have a question,” V said, and he looked at her.

“Yes?”

“Does this mean that you know my real name?” she asked, searching his eyes for some kind of tell.

“I do.”

V nodded, pulling her lips into her mouth and lightly biting on them before releasing them. “Please never call me it.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I may just cry forever…if you do.”

Takemura shook his head. “Why must you say such things?”

“I don’t want to remember what it felt like before I decided to be strong.” She picked at a string on her jacket. “And I’m strong when I’m V. And that’ll have to be enough. It has to be.”

She turned her body more towards him, adding, “It’s the one thing I ask. Nothing else.”

“I understand.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

V nodded. “Then I’m glad we understand each other.”

“I must say, though,” Takemura started, “that I do not share the same sentiment, and if you would like to call me by my given name…that would be alright. It is Goro.”

“Goro?” V repeated. She thought on it for a moment. “Hm. Okay. _Goro._ ”

Takemura turned around to look over the banister, leaning over just enough to look straight down, using his hands to hold himself in place. He made a sound of disappointed disgust.

“This place is called ‘Japantown’, and yet it resembles the country of its namesake not at all. Why do they call it this?”

“Not up to your standards, Goro?”

“It is simply an insult.”

“Well…” V shrugged. “Not everyone can live in luxury.” She shuffled awkwardly. “I used to live here.”

“Ah.” Takemura cleared his throat. “I mean no ill-will, V. I offer my apologies. I am simply… _unused_ to this city.”

She brushed him off with a vague wave of her hand. “It’s alright. It isn’t like anyone who lives here asked for it to be called that. Or believes that it’s actually anything like Japan. But for most of us, this is the closest we’ll ever get to the real thing.”

“You would enjoy the real Japan much better,” Takemura said kindly, straightening his posture slightly as they stood there, to which V became more aware of their height difference. “There is less random murder awaiting you at every street corner. Significantly less.”

“Less chance of being indiscriminately slaughtered while walking down the street?” V asked. “Sounds like a paradise.”

“Your substantially low standards for the quality of life are alarming, V.”

“Quality of life isn’t something that people living on the brink of poverty can take time considering, not when the common cold could sweep through a poor neighborhood and kill off an entire street of families who don’t have access to even the most basic medicine.”

“You are pessimistic,” Takemura said. “And you have a fairly nice apartment, V. I would not consider you as being on the brink of poverty.”

“Everyone in Night City is on the brink of poverty. Everyone is one bad day away from losing everything. It shouldn’t be considered pessimistic to live within your means, to be aware of them. Poor people are not irresponsible with their money, with their lives. The poorest people are the most aware of how life is, aware of every single penny sitting – or not sitting – in their bank account. It’s not a matter of pessimism, or of hope. It’s a matter of inescapable suffering at the hands of the corporate machine.”

“But you do not hope for more?”

“Of course,” V said in exasperation. “Of course, I do. Hope…hope is just a very difficult cross to bear. It’s hard to be that vulnerable. To…to admit to everyone that you…that you want things, that you hope for more than you have. Because admitting you want things is like telling everyone that you think you deserve them…telling them that the way your life is now really isn’t okay, even when you pretend it is.”

“And where would you go, if you could leave?”

“Anywhere.”

“You can visit me in Japan.”

“Is that an invitation?”

_“It is a promise.”_

Automatically, V cast her eyes onto his at this statement. That was quite a thing to suggest to a stranger. How he could be making vows such as that was beyond her. Perhaps it was because he knew the promises could never be fulfilled as her life was hanging by a thread. It was easy to make statements this way when they didn’t require a tangible responsibility.

“Hm,” she said, and looked away.

“May I…make a remark, V?”

“Of course,” she said. “What is it?”

“When I arrived in the city last month, I thought that I understood everything.” He watched as a father and daughter passed below their overlook, the girl sitting on her father’s shoulders. “I thought…that my life was guaranteed. This city has made me feel a mortality I have not known since childhood. Fumbling, always checking over my shoulder, never knowing what tomorrow holds.”

He moved his hand to brush hers as they rested upon the rail, perhaps intentionally or perhaps not.

“And yet,” he said, “in spite of all of these things…all of this city’s incessant brutality…you show me a kindness I have not known for decades.”

“Which is?” she asked.

“You are here with me, and yet you expect nothing of me. You stand to gain nothing from my company; in fact, you lose more with every second you jeopardize your safety by my side. But you stay. I have not known anyone in so very long who would speak with me and not have something to ask of me. I invited you here, and you showed up, even if it meant that you would be placed in harm’s way.”

“Well,” V said, “when you say it like that, maybe I’m just…reckless.”

“You survived a night at the hands of every Arasaka soldier in the city with their guns trained on you. If you are reckless, then you are the most capable reckless person I have ever met.”

"Oh," she said. "I don't know about that. I am dying, if you haven't forgotten."

“You are a woman who, self-proclaimed, seems to know the dangers of these streets. I think you would not be here if you didn’t want to be. Do not sell yourself short, V. You are stronger than you know. You can survive this.”

“Talk about selling yourself short,” V remarked. “You haven’t said anything nice about yourself.”

“I have just stood here and given an entire cold read of your personality and you ate it up. If my enormous ego is not obvious by now, V, I do not think I can speak it any more clearly.”

“A joke?”

“Yes, I am joking.”

“If you won’t say anything nice about yourself," she asked, "can I?”

Takemura said nothing, but nodded.

“I know that…it doesn’t feel good, what happened,” V said, and Takemura waited patiently for her to continue. “But if you hadn’t been sent after me…I wouldn’t be alive. And you killed the person who killed me.” She added this last sentence on as it occurred to her. “There must be some kind of karmic resolution there.”

She put her hand overtop his lightly, allowing him the space to move away from her should he desire, but he did not.

“I know you probably feel like you failed at your job…to protect the person you were supposed to.” She stopped for a moment, watching her nervous hand over his as she spoke, thinking carefully. “But you saved my life…and there’s nothing I can say that would be enough to tell you how grateful I am to be alive. How grateful I am to have met you.”

She pulled her hand away.

“Goro,” V said, and the two of them allowed the speaking of his name to resonate through them both. The familiarity of a name that was known between two people carried such gentle care; a trust in the knowing. “Why did you save me?”

“There was no choice,” he said, unhesitant. “It was no option to allow your death.”

“But what made you stay and wait for me to recover? You could’ve run. You could be a thousand miles away by now.”

“Arasaka would travel to every corner of every ocean to find me. I could not hide even in the core of the earth.”

“That doesn’t mean that you needed to wait at my bedside…so why did you?”

“Have you never known humility, V?” he asked. “To care for another person simply because they are a human being that deserves to live,” he said, “does Night City not know this?”

V gaped at him, shaking her head. “Certainly not,” she said.

“Then I am to be the first to bring it here.”

He sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose between the fingers of his right hand, leaning on his forearms and closing his eyes.

“恋の予感,” _{koi no yokan},_ he said, staring down at the street below, the people beneath them crossing paths at random like dozens of fish swimming in both directions of a stream, a kind of natural chaos. “That is why I stayed.”

V turned her head towards him, face of heavy concern. “Huh?” she asked. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing.” Takemura shook his head, letting the prior words fall away from him, fall down into the crowd below and disappear completely. He sighed. “It is…it is simply because I felt a responsibility. I have spent most of my life protecting people. Duty is my livelihood. And I fulfilled it.”

V watched the people below. “I don’t think I ended up doing much showing you around,” she said. “I guess I’m not much of a tour guide.”

“No,” Takemura said, resting his left hand on V’s upper right arm, then letting it fall. “You showed me a great deal. Perhaps not of the city. But of yourself.”

"Well, then," V said. "You're welcome. A-and thank you, too." 

Takemura smiled with a closed mouth. “I will keep in touch, 後輩.” _{Kohai}_

He reached out his hand for her to grab and she looked at it hesitantly. “Oh,” she said. “Um…yeah…same deal.” And she accepted his extended offer of a shake.

Takemura chuckled lightly and shook his head.

They lingered, facing the other for a soft moment of regard, and V wondered what a goodbye could look like between them. What sort of goodbye did unwillingly friendly strangers have?

But when he slipped his hand away, at the very end he held the tips of her fingers in his own for a brief moment, so subtle that V thought she hadn’t noticed correctly at all. Even as they parted ways in opposite directions, she still felt like his hand was there at the end of hers, an incidental extension of herself. 

It may not have been much, and it may not have been anything at all, but she knew that it meant one single, reassuring thing.

It was a goodbye that told her she would see him again.


	3. A Woman’s Time To Embrace, She Must Put Herself First

**C H A P T E R T H R E E**

_A Woman’s Time To Embrace, She Must Put Herself First_

Days had passed – six of them – since last Takemura had spoken in person with V. The near week that had gone by found V pursuing other leads to discover information about what was happening to her and inside of her brain where the Relic was.

At Takemura’s urging over a few phone-calls and texts the past days, V had looked into the disappearances of Evelyn Parker and Anders Hellman, two people whose involvement in the stealing of the Relic could not be understated; Evelyn for hiring her in the first place and Anders for having worked at Arasaka in relation to the technology.

Precious little was emerging itself to her from her tireless efforts in pursuing those leads, and she was becoming restless. Nobody but Takemura seemed to have the time of day for her, and her other contacts were incredibly emotionally and socially guarded.

One contact, Rogue - a former acquaintance of Johnny’s - had required 15,000 eddies to even entertain the presence of V, and V didn’t have that sort of cash to spare at random. That was an insane ask; the price of many months’ rent.

Today, though, following the modest family get-together at El Coyote Cojo organized by Mama Welles the previous week, V stood alone in front of Jackie’s storage unit at Night City’s Columbarium, located east of the city. For a place of so much death, it was the only one she could retreat to in order to feel positively alone.

She didn’t know how long she had been there, perhaps all day, but she never wanted to go home. Going home again was not the same as it had been before she had lost her very best friend in the world. Home was not home at all. Not if Jackie could never back to his own again. 

She leaned her head against the concrete panel of her late friend’s grave. “I can’t do this without you, Jack,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.”

Speaking aloud, tears fell and never stopped. This was the only place in the entire city where she could come to cry publicly and it would have been stranger not to. Everyone else around her cried before the graves of their own fallen friends and family. She felt companionship with the strangers surrounding her; a place of mutual upset where sadness didn’t need to be held inside.

“Jackie,” she pleaded, hands flat against the memorial. “Come back. Just come back, please. Jackie, _please._ Don’t leave it like this. You had so many people waiting for you.”

But that was the thing about death; it didn’t wait. The memory of everything Jackie had been stopped in place at thirty, and would be forever trapped in the imperfect world he left behind. Death came as an intake of breath without the exhale.

People weren’t supposed to die at thirty. V would not accept this.

“If you had just waited…” She shook her head in disdain. “If you had just waited five minutes… _five minutes!_ You’d still be here, Jack. The chip would’ve kept _you_ alive if you’d have just kept it. Why did you give it to me, Jack? Why did you have to do that? You…you could be here with me, and we could be a thousand miles away by now. God…I don’t know, even, three-thousand miles! _Who knows?_ We could be anywhere but here.”

_'Well crying about it won’t get you anywhere. Jesus.’_

Johnny leaned beside her suddenly, shoulder pressed against the row of graves, arms crossed, as usual. V sometimes wondered if he was stuck like that permanently.

“Shut up!” she cried, out loud. She would not hide her misery for the sake of public appearance. She would scream and she would cry and she would not be quiet about it. “Just shut up! _You don’t know anything, Johnny._ Leave me alone! Leave me alone and never come back. God…please, just, just _stop_.”

Johnny patted the wall of Jackie’s grave and V pushed his hand away, saying, “Don’t touch him.”

He rolled his eyes and looked down to his boots solemnly. _‘No matter how much you talk to this wall, nothing’s gonna change, V.’_

“I don’t care what you say. I don’t need you here to lecture me.”

_'Everybody loses people, V. It happens every day. You’re lucky it didn’t happen sooner.’_

“Jackie wasn’t supposed to die. He was supposed to live forever.”

_‘Only the rich live forever.’_

V put her hands to her head and slid down the wall of urns. **_“If immortality exists…how can there be death in this world at all!?”_**

Johnny squatted down next to her and placed his metallic arm on her shoulder, but she shrugged him off. “No, _don’t_ …don’t touch me.”

Johnny waited quietly for a moment, his silence a surprising but welcome addition to their dynamic. V cried into her knees, pressing her cheek against them and covering her face with her arms.

' _You loved him.’_

“Of course, I loved him. He was all I had.”

_‘Now I get it.’_

V looked up, face puffy. She rubbed her tears on the sleeve of her shirt.

“No, Johnny. You don’t. You think that because I loved him, I must have been sleeping with him? Is that all you know? Love and sex as the same thing? I loved Jack because he was my best friend. But you wouldn’t understand that. I doubt you've ever had a true friend in your life.”

She pushed up from the ground and brushed herself off. Johnny raised up to stand again as well.

“Love isn’t…it isn’t what _they_ can do for you,” she said, turning and walking towards the exit. “Love is…it’s…leaving the light on, when you know they’re coming home. It’s heating up a pot of water for hot chocolate on a cold night, hot chocolate you’ll have together when they get back. Sending them a text and telling them to drive safe. Waiting up to make sure they get home. Love is more than bodies. It’s the feeling of somebody noticing when you’re not there and wondering where you are. Love is the coming back. Love is the endless waiting.”

V was walking briskly, wanting out of this place as soon as possible. Johnny was keeping up easily on account of his longer legs.

“So, no…” she ended, “what Jackie and I had wasn’t romantic, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t love. I don’t know what it was.”

_'But if he had wanted you, you would’ve said no?’_

V hesitated; bit her tongue. She didn’t answer fast enough.

 _'Ooh,’_ Johnny said, pointer finger tapping his nose and stepping in front of her as she walked. He walked backwards while she walked towards him. _‘We have a winner. Bet you were jealous of Misty, huh?’_

V pushed past him and he stumbled. “Misty is an incredible person. And she’s the only person in the world right now who knows exactly what it felt like to…to lose Jackie.”

 _‘Not even his mom?’_ Johnny prodded.

“That’s different.” V shook her head. “I mean of non-family members.”

Johnny laughed. _‘Oh,’_ he said. _‘You mean ‘women he fucked’.’_

V’s blood and skin boiled in anger. “You’re vile,” she spat.

 _'Vile?’_ Johnny laughed again, more than before. _‘Jeez, word of the day much, **Valérie**?’_

V stopped dead still in her path out of the columbarium, her hands shook as a wave of anxiety passed across her body. It was like she had been caught doing something that she shouldn’t have. Caught in a lie she hadn’t told.

“Excuse me?” she said shakily, not turning around. She did not know if it was fear or rage that she shook with; perhaps both.

He smirked. He had plucked the correct string. _‘What, can’t use your name?’_

“Never,” she said, in what was meant to be anger, but passed through her trembling lips as but a whisper.

Johnny circled around her, a hyena laughing at a struggling deer in a starving desert. 

_'Valérie is…French, huh? But, your mother wasn’t French, was she?’_

“Stop…” V tilted her head back to force tears not to fall. She had a headache from crying, and she couldn’t take it anymore. She didn’t know that her voice was hoarse and barely audible, not that it mattered to Johnny. He could hear her perfectly well, all the same. “Don’t talk about her. Don’t you _ever_ talk about her.”

 _‘Oh, did you want me to call you the other name you had?’_ he asked. _‘You had two, didn’t you? What was it again? Hmm…’_ He tapped his chin dramatically.

“Stop. Talking.”

 _'Guess you two really needed each other, huh?’_ Johnny said, looking up at the sky. _‘You and Jackie.’_

V said nothing.

_‘His body didn’t even have time to get cold when you caught a cap from Dexter Deshawn. You know what they say; birds of a feather…’_

“If Jackie is dead, I should be too. It isn’t fair that I lived and he didn’t.”

V’s phone pinged in her pocket and both she and Johnny looked to where the sound came from. She ended their fight on the spot and grabbed the phone.

______

 **From: Takemura** 😱

 _Can you meet me at the docks on the west of Japantown tonight?_ [4:54 PM]

 _Beneath the cover of darkness only. Approach the archway by the water and wait for me to come to you. Ensure you are not followed._ [4:59 PM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Crouching tiger will be waiting cautiously in the bushes for menacing mantis to approach. Got it._ [5:02 PM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _This is no joke, V._ [5:04 PM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _I was just playing along._ [5:05 PM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Such sentiments are lost in translation._ [5:08 PM]

 _And you surely are not a menacing mantis._ [5:08 PM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _What would you say I am?_ 🤔 [5:11 PM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _There is an old Japanese folktale of a woman named Okiku. You are much like this woman. Perhaps I can tell you the story someday._ [5:15 PM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _I look forward to it, then._ [5:16 PM]

______

She put her phone away to see that Johnny was no longer there. She exited the columbarium alone.

* * * * *

That night, V drove herself on Jackie’s bike to the meeting place with Takemura. She parked the bike in a safe location nearby, hanging her helmet on one of the handles, and then proceeded on foot down to the docks.

In darkness, V approached carefully, steps slow as she surveyed the area around her. Dismal and damp; a perfect place to be murdered and tossed into the river which ran through the city. Maybe this was where she would meet her end.

She held her hands out in front of her slightly to show whoever was watching that she carried no weapons and that she had arrived alone, with peaceful intentions.

“It is good to see you safe, V,” Takemura said, stepping to the front of her from the darkness and bowing his head. She jumped slightly as he seemed to appear from nowhere. He did not offer to shake her hand and she was silently disappointed.

“Good to see you, too,” she offered.

“We have little time,” he said. “We are meeting someone here.”

“Oh?” she asked. “Uh…who? You know someone other than me?”

“Very funny,” he said, and she smiled. “I have contacted my former apprentice, Sandayu Oda. He is the bodyguard of Yorinobu’s younger sister, Hanako. I trained him for years when he joined the service of the Arasaka family.”

“Go on.”

“There is to be a parade in Saburo-sama’s honor in just a few days’ time. I assumed that Hanako-sama would surely be in the city for her own father’s funeral march and I was correct; this will be the perfect opportunity to plead our innocence with her and clear our names. I have contacted Oda to arrange this meeting, and he has agreed to make an appearance here, at the docks, shortly.”

“You think she’d even talk to us?” V asked, lifting herself up onto the railing beside the river and sitting atop it. She crossed her legs at the ankle. Takemura followed and stood in front of her.

“I have known Hanako-sama for many years,” he said. “She is a woman of great virtue. She will see us. She will understand.”

He shook his head and looked down. “No,” he continued, “Hanako, I am not worried about. She knows me well; she will speak with me.”

V raised her brow, saying, “And yet?”

Takemura sighed. He crossed his arms. “Her bodyguard, Oda…he is…as I am. As I _was_. We cannot do anything until we have his permission. Hanako-sama is not a woman who will be walking down the street. No. We must contact Oda and ask his blessing.”

“She can’t do anything unless her bodyguard lets her?”

“You scoff at this, V, but surely you understand the importance of protection when so many would have _you_ killed?”

V shrugged, saying, “I guess so. But that’s why I have you.” She lightly poked against his shoulder, but he did not smile.

“You say this…this, ‘lets her’.” Takemura leaned against the railing beside her, his back to it. “Oda does not ‘let’ Hanako do anything. It is not his place. Hanako-sama does as she pleases. It is _us_ who must be allowed. _Us_ who must be granted autonomy of a visit. Not her. You greatly misunderstand us, V.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it,” V said. “I apologize if I came across anything in the wrong way. Just trying to understand. I’ve never known anyone important before; not like this.”

“I am not important.”

“You must be, if everyone wants you dead so badly.”

“The truth of which I am aware is what is truly important. Yorinobu does not want _me_ dead. It is the truth that he is looking to kill. It is what I know of his father’s death that he is so desperately seeking to bury. Me, I could be as dirt on the ground, sand on the beach. I am not important.”

“You’re important to me.”

“Why," he asked, "because we have such riveting conversations?”

“Because you talk to me like I matter.”

He huffed slightly. “Respect for humanity is the way of traditional Japanese life. I am regretful to learn that you do not know this simple human kindness. America is so backwards. You live in a terrible country; you know this?”

“You think I don’t?" she said. "You think things are like this because we like it?”

“It is no matter." Takemura shook his head. "We cannot talk in loops like this. We are wasting time.”

Behind them, from up the tunnel which went beneath the road above, an armored black truck rolled towards them, windows entirely unable to be seen through.

Takemura stood at attention and reverted to professional mode, one which he had dropped in the presence of V. She wasn’t sure if she should feel honored at his comfort towards her or his apparent disregard for maintaining appearances when she was around.

The passenger door opened after the truck had lingered briefly in complete stillness. A young man with black hair which fell over half his face exited the opened door, outfitted in a professional serviceman outfit and covered in many of the same cybernetics as Takemura.

“Oda,” Takemura said, approaching carefully and bowing his head. He reached for Oda’s hand but the younger man pulled away.

“What is it that you are wanting, Goro?”

Takemura stepped back absentmindedly, and V could tell he was in shock.

“Oda?” he asked quietly. “Is something wrong?”

“You are a criminal,” Oda said, so obviously. “You are in no position to be making any demands of me. Say what you must say, and say it now.”

Takemura hesitated, mouth agape slightly. “O-Oda, I must speak with Hanako-sama. My friend and I have information for her that is imperative she learn of.” He gestured behind him to V and she held her hand up awkwardly. “I cannot ask you strongly enough for this favor, Oda. _Please_. There must be enough here for you to feel some kind of obligation to me.”

Oda looked between his two assailants, measuring them up for size. Surely, he did not see V as a threat, she thought. Two trained bodyguards and… _her_ , whatever that meant. Appearances may be misleading, though she would not be any amount pleased to fight the man, regardless.

“I see what this is about,” Oda said, landing his eyes upon Takemura’s, judgement heavy, before flicking briefly to V. She shuffled on the spot beneath his gaze.

“Oda, _please_.” Takemura took a small step towards his former apprentice, but the younger man stepped back, arms crossed. “Do not disregard me as though we are strangers, Oda. This rudeness is unbecoming of you.”

Oda laughed bitterly, short and cutting. “You have turned on us all so easily, Takemura-san. How can you say what is like or unlike me when you have fallen so far from your own self?”

Takemura shook his head in exasperation. “I have not turned on anyone,” he said quickly. “I ask only for one opportunity to tell Hanako-sama of the truth which she is unaware of. I am desperate.”

“Clearly.”

Oda stared at V again, from her boots to her face, and she shied in on herself.

“You have a new ward, it seems.” Oda said, looking at and through V, scanning her entire presence there as if judging her allowance to be left alive. “Go, _protect her_. And do not contact me again.”

“V is not my ward,” Takemura said, taking a step in Oda's direction. “She is my partner.”

Oda laughed. “Partners already? With a common street rat? You are a fool, old man.”

Oda turned away from them and Takemura stepped even closer, following him as the younger man returned to the vehicle in which he had arrived. Oda opened the door and climbed back inside. He rolled the window down and leaned out to look at V and Takemura standing pathetically outside the car.

“When Yorinobu comes asking…” Oda paused, looking at them both again. “I will try to show you mercy. That is all.”

He stared at them for a long moment, saying nothing more, and then rolled up the window and rode away.

“Come, V.” Takemura turned immediately and began to head back to his own car. “We cannot waste time. Will you ride with me?”

V thought briefly of Jackie's bike where she had hidden it. She would have to return later to retrieve it should she leave with Takemura.

“Of course," she said. "Where are we going?”

“Do you know anyone with whom we can be in contact?” He stormed back to his own vehicle, and V followed. “It must be someone…someone who has connections to the Japanese community in the city. I have other ideas, but this loss of Oda’s assistance is a terrible blow to us.”

V crossed over to the passenger’s side of the car and climbed inside, closing the door behind her. “Well, I do know one person," she said. "Her name is Wakako Okada. She’s heavily tied into the Tyger Claws, the Japanese gang that operates in the city. She would help us. I’ve done a lot of work for her.”

“Contact her and ask for a meeting,” Takemura commanded, and V nodded, taking out her phone and sending a text to Wakako in request of her audience.

“She probably won’t answer until tomorrow,” V said, repocketing her phone. “Since it’s so late.”

“It must be enough,” Takemura said. “We have little choice than to wait.”

Takemura, having not closed his door yet, slammed it shut. V jumped at the sudden noise.

“Oh, when he betrays his calm by letting slip the pride of the young man inside. ふざけんな!” _{fuzakenna}_ Takemura ran the knuckle of his thumb over his lips annoyedly. “Oh, this is…this is so…so unhappy feeling!”

“Unhappy feeling?” V asked, placing her left hand onto his shoulder lightly, leaning to see his face where he was looking down at his own lap.

He popped against the steering wheel with his palms one quick time and then gripped it tightly and leaned his forehead against it.

“Those are not the words I am wanting to say but I cannot think right now. This did not go as I imagined.”

“What are we going to do now?” V asked.

“Now we are left with very little.” He held his hands over one another on the wheel and leaned his chin atop them. “Oda, I have known since his boyhood. I thought that he could be reasoned with. Evidently, I was not correct. He carries no extra time for a disgraced old man.”

“Hey,” V said, hand still upon his shoulder comfortingly. “You’re more than just a disgraced old man.”

Takemura turned his head to look at her, brow raised in question.

“You’re also an international felon.”

Takemura rolled his eyes and looked away again. “That is not funny, V. This is a gravely serious situation.”

"It takes serious crimes against mankind to make two separate countries hate you at the same time. You’re a man of many talents, Goro. I think you may yet have a career in crimes across waters.”

He smiled, likely not a happy one, but a desperate, solemn one. A smile that said he had no other choice than to laugh in the hopelessness of the situation. V wanted to dissuade the tension. Two upset people cannot help one another, so she maintained her calm.

“Hey,” she continued, “relations between Night City and Japan have been shaky for a while now, but, if both of them are united in hating you, then…the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right? Haven’t you technically provided a great alliance between two different groups of people who both separately don't like you?”

Takemura huffed. “What is next?” he asked. “Will we perform a heist on the Louvre?”

“Hey, it’s early,” V said. “Anything’s possible if we believe. I bet we could become a great team if we put our heads together.”

“An ex-bodyguard of one of the most hated men in your country and a petty thief with a death wish. Surely we will be laughed out of the crime world.”

“At least they’ll know who we are.”

Takemura frowned, and V felt she had dropped the ball.

“All life is not about being known,” he said.

V tried to keep up the friendly momentum, saying jokingly, “Don’t you want to leave behind a legacy?”

“My legacy will be all of the times that I stood tall in the face of injustice,” he said. “I regret not the things I have done wrong, V, but the good things that I have failed at doing.”

“Read that on a fortune cookie?” she asked teasingly, but he shook his head.

“I am sure that you will understand with more years, 後輩.” _{Kohai}_

“That word,” V said, “you called me it before. What does it mean?”

Takemura loosened up visibly, his shoulders falling and his face tension releasing. “Well,” he said, “the meaning of 後輩 has changed over many decades of the twenty-first century, but it is traditionally used between two people of a similar age who coexist in some kind of hierarchal dynamic, such as school or work – the younger, more inexperienced person is 後輩, and the older, more experienced, they are 先輩.” _{Senpai}_

“But we aren’t close in age," V pointed out.

“I know this," Takemura said. "And the exact meaning of these terms has become more circumstantial in recent years. I mean it only to say that, you, 後輩, are someone with whom I am working which I see as being on equal standing to myself, but that you are still younger than I, and I carry a natural responsibility for you.”

“You see me as an equal?”

“You have far proven your capability in life and in the face of great struggle. Though you may have no professional training, you are remarkably willful, and I must say that I admire the rawness of the heart you fight with. I should think that our years of difference in age may only be marked as significant by the cybernetics I have lost. Had I retained those…I could easily crush you like a grape.”

“Well…I mean…I suppose I’m honored. Thank you…for not crushing me…like a grape, even though you could if you wanted.”

“No, no, you mishear me,” Takemura said. “I do not _want_ to kill you. I said only that I _could_ , if I had retained my enhanced abilities. Which I have not. So…you are safe with me.”

“Well, admittedly, I’m a little terrified now.” V smiled. “But, thank you for the reassurance…I think.”

There was a beat of silence, and Takemura returned to his private thoughts, though V interjected again to keep him from his mental solitude.

“Does this mean I should call you _Takemura-senpai?”_

Takemura gasped quietly. “It certainly does not. No. Goro will be fine.”

“I’m just kidding,” V said, sure that she could spot something like a blush on the man. “But I should call you something. I want you to know that I respect you.”

“I…thank you,” he said awkwardly. “But that will not be necessary. Foreigners using Japanese honorifics is usually…misguided, to say the least. I appreciate the sentiment, however, and…and I will think on it.”

He fell again, before her eyes, and she could sense the upset creeping back inside of her companion.

“Takemura, hey.” She reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder again, where previously she had removed it. “Look at me. Tell me how I can be here for you right now.”

“I fear that you cannot, V,” he said. “But I thank you…for your presence.”

V looked at him sadly, rubbing her thumb into the blade of his shoulder, then releasing. She looked forward out to the river and the city. She thought of her apartment and going home when something occurred to her.

“You want to see something amazing?” she asked, turning quickly to him in sudden excitement.

Takemura gave her a strange look. “Somehow that does not inspire confidence.”

“It’ll be great!” she said, reaching for her seatbelt and buckling it in. “Drive us to my building. The ‘something amazing’ is in my apartment.”

“It would not be safe, V, for us to linger in your residence for long.”

“We won’t be long, just a quick little visit and then you can run off and hide back in whatever corner you were standing in, or whatever hole you snuck out of that you won’t tell me about.”

“This is a matter of severe safety, V. This is not a game.”

“I’m just trying to keep things light.”

“It is not ‘light’ to know that we are always on the verge of having our stomachs sliced and our intestines ripped out and jumped rope with.”

V laughed, and Takemura shot her a questioning look. “Now you sound just like Johnny,” she said. “He said almost the exact same thing the other day.”

“Then he is aware of the dangers we face.”

“Oh…more or less. He kind of…he kind of…doesn’t like you, very much, though.”

“Well, please tell him that I am sorry to hear that.”

 _‘Oh, please,’_ Johnny said. _‘I’m gonna gag.’_

The drive to her home was pleasant, not filled entirely with much in the way of conversation, and yet, peaceful. V pointed out different landmarks of the city which she felt important to mention, and Takemura made various positive and negative responses to the things she brought up.

“Pull into the garage,” V said when they arrived, pointing towards the parking area attached to her building. “It’s easier to hide the vehicle in there.”

* * * * *

Takemura stepped slowly over the threshold into V’s apartment, awkwardly lingering near the entrance as if he hadn’t been invited in properly.

V disappeared into her storage room and searched quickly through the weapons on the wall, Takemura staying far away and not following, but watching her from where he could barely see her.

V returned with a sheathed katana in her arms, to which she held it out to him. “Ta-da!” she said excitedly.

For a short second, Takemura did not react, and V thought for a moment that the surprise she had thought would be meaningful would actually not matter at all if he did not recognize the sword.

But then it caught him. He instinctively reached out to touch the sheath.

“S-Satori…h-how did you get this?”

It was the katana V had taken from Konpeki Plaza before she’d left off the balcony with Jackie. Saburo Arasaka had seemingly arrived outside Yorinobu’s penthouse by flight-vehicle, landing on the roof above. V had found the katana on the seat inside the AV.

Takemura ran his hand barely across the surface of the sword’s intricate case and V smiled coyly.

“Oh, y’know…” she said. “Just found it lying around.”

He accepted the katana into his arms like a newborn baby.

“You stole from a dead man,” he said, though his words held no spite. Only distracted wonder.

He unsheathed the katana carefully and placed its cover onto the cabinets near V’s couch. He examined every inch of the blade, its near-perfect forge glimmering in the lights of V’s room.

“Do you even know how to use it?” Takemura asked, and V shook her head in surprise at the question. She had never considered how properly to wield a katana before, instead wielding it like any other sword. Not that she was a trained swordsman, either. Being hit with a sharp piece of metal would hurt anyone, even if the person holding it was blindfolded and swinging rapidly in no direction.

“Not everyone can go to katana university,” she said.

Takemura motioned for her to hold out her hands again and she did so, to which he placed Satori back into her hold.

Takemura let his coat fall from his shoulders and folded it neatly upon the seat of V’s couch. He unbuttoned the cufflinks of his white shirt and rolled up the sleeves, exposing his forearms, and the further silvery lines of his cybernetics like full sleeves of tattoos intricately trailed upon the skin. V tried to look anywhere else.

From her hands, Takemura cautiously accepted the blade again into his own, lovingly regarding it with the upmost admiration and respect.

“He would not have let me ever touch it for even a moment. Precious family heirloom.” His eyes reflected in the thin fragment of mirroring the katana provided. “It is, how do they say it… _nerve-wracking_ …it is nerve-wracking to hold this now. It is a strange feeling.”

“Does it feel kind of…life-affirming?” V suggested, her eyes and smile hopeful. She had never seen him happy.

“A blade is an extension of the wielder,” Takemura said, running his pointer finger and thumb along the metal. He held it out before him and pointed it towards V, as if to challenge her. “It is as to us as our very soul. A blade is for life. For death. Saburo-sama should have carried Satori to his grave.”

V nodded understandingly, and Takemura took a step closer to her.

“Come here,” he said, and she cautiously crossed to where he stood and presented herself before his teaching. He moved to stand behind her, and her skin prickled in anticipation.

“Hold it like this.” Enveloping her with his body, chest to her back, he grabbed her left and right hands, respectively, and placed them over the katana’s grip, beneath his own, much larger, hands. They were warm and cold at the same time, flesh and metal.

“Now,” he said. “Do not ever swing a katana like a baseball bat." He moved Satori in a sideways swatting motion, to show her. "That is rudimentary, and incorrect. Your goal should never be to simply _hit_ a target with brute force. Your aim should always be to cut them, to create a slice.”

He held their hands together and raised the blade straight into the air above their heads, and then made a swift downward movement, entirely aligned in the center, pulling their elbows toward their bodies.

He released her from his embrace, leaving Satori in her hands, and moved away from her a respectful distance. She regarded the weapon in her grasp, now feeling so much more important that Takemura had given it meaning.

“Would you like it?” she asked, turning and looking up at him expectantly.

“Oh,” he said, head bowing slightly, “I do not know, V. To you, it is only a sword. But to me, it represents so much in the way of…of knowing my place. This sword is of royalty. I could not possibly accept. It would not be right.”

“But you don’t work for them anymore,” V said, holding out the sword closer to him for the taking and making a step closer. “You don’t owe them anything. Nobody is going to punish you for having it.”

He did not respond immediately, looking from her face to Satori and remaining there silently in ponder. His words may have spoken in decline but it was clear to her that his eyes betrayed how badly he wanted to say _yes_.

“I have never received a gift,” was what he said, though; a non-response, as was typical of him. He reached out and ran his fingers along the blade again. “Though, I suppose it would not count as one, as it is stolen.”

“If Saburo is dead,” V urged, brow raised, “then, is it really stolen?” She wanted him to take it, wanted him to do something that was against his rules.

“Technically,” Takemura said, tone in slight jest, clearly testing himself on the waters of how far his devotion to the Arasaka family went, “Satori’s ownership would transfer upon death to Yorinobu. And he…he, I am okay stealing from.”

From her grip, Takemura accepted the blade into his own hands again, and he regarded it with such adoration in his look which V had never seen cast between anyone and an object before in her entire life. She watched and waited for him to have his moment, clearly one which was significantly important to him.

“Why don’t you like Yorinobu?” V asked shyly. “If I…if it’s alright that I bring it up?”

“Because he is a hollow memory of the empire that Arasaka Saburo created.”

V stood still, and Takemura looked to her. He gestured behind them to her couch, and the two of them stepped away to take seats to continue the conversation more comfortably. V sat crisscrossed upon the cushion, Takemura sat with Satori across his lap, still regarding it with great respect.

“Truly,” he said, rubbing the handle of the blade with his thumb, “I must be transparent and admit that…that I was jealous of him.”

He took V’s left hand lightly and placed her fingertips over the blade. “Do you feel that?” he asked, and she shook her head. “Exactly. The way that the Damascus folds of the metal are untouchable beneath your fingers. The way that it bends and swirls in its own special world, like the flow of water. It is simply beautiful.”

He released her hand and returned to his own private admiration of it again.

“Did you know Yorinobu is older than I?” he asked. “You would not guess it, the way we look. But it is because the Arasakas do not age, not like the rest of us. Yorinobu never appreciated what he had. He ran off to play at revolutionary when it suited him, and when he was done, he returned to his gold and his riches. I know that public American opinion of Arasaka Saburo is not kind. But he is the only man for whom I would bow. I owe him everything. And I apologize greatly if we will never see eye-to-eye on this point, V. But I owe this man my very soul.”

V regretted what she may be about to say, but she could not go on without voicing it. She was sure her parents would not approve of whom she was speaking with, of this man’s intimate involvement with forces which had destroyed so much of this fragile world, and yet her heart hurt for the desire to be close to another person. To connect to him. 

“I know I’ve said unkind things, about the Arasakas.” She looked down at her crisscrossed legs and twisted the edge of her sock in her fingers. She was searching for the right words and not finding them. “But I would rather you be honest with me, like you are right now, than pretend to be something you aren’t.”

She reached her hand out and placed it chastely on his knee, in no way that could be interpreted as a suggestive gesture. It was purely friendly. “My family has been burned beyond fixing by the Arasaka Corporation…but that doesn’t mean that, separately, you could have had an entirely different perspective of them. I may not feel the same way that you do, and I may not like it...but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand. I don’t have to like something to understand why it is the way it is. And I know why you care, Goro. I know. Saburo…was like a father to you.”

 _‘You’re walking on thin ice here, V,’_ Johnny spat bitterly, appearing before her on the other side of the room, behind Takemura. _‘I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You’re just gonna fucking turn on me like this? I knew you were soft. You’re a waste of space. A waste of breath. You’re just like the rest of them, you know, eating out of the palms of the hands of the rich and famous, never stopping once to think about what **real people** suffer through every goddamn day. And don’t even get me started on – ’_

“V?” Takemura asked concernedly, leaning in front of V’s gaze where she had been looking behind at Johnny. “Are you okay?”

“Sorry,” she said, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her palms to erase the intruder from her visual memory. When she opened them again, Johnny was gone. “Just…it’s nothing. It’s late. I’m probably just tired.”

Takemura’s eyes flashed a different color momentarily in what V assumed must have been some kind of search he was doing or message he had been receiving. She waited for him to say anything about it, and yet when his eyes returned to normal, he stood and offered no explanation.

“I should be going.”

“Did something come up?”

“No,” he said. “It is just late. I was unaware of the time.”

She wanted to ask him to stay. Wanted to tell him to. Wanted to demand it. The very last thing she wanted was to be alone, and if that meant spending an awkward night with an awkward man she barely knew, then it would be preferrable to the lonely silence that would envelop her upon his leaving.

Takemura slid Satori back into her case, and retrieved his jacket from the couch. He shrugged it back onto his shoulders, straightened it out, and stepped away from V in aim of the door. Satori was held by a strap over his shoulder.

He pressed the button to open the door and it slid to the side with a rush of air, the coldness of the hallway spilling inside. V didn’t understand why he had to flee so fast. 

_“Wait – ”_

She caught up to him briskly and he turned back to see what she needed.

“You don’t…you don’t have to leave, if you don’t want to,” she said quickly, the words spilling out before she had time to consider the consequences.

Whatever this impromptu, downright desperate, if she had to call it anything, proposition to him meant – it was clear that its meanings branched in a hundred different directions. She wanted him to stay because she didn’t want to be alone, and she knew this, _had_ to know this. It was really only about her own self, yes? About how she was in need of comfort in a lonely time. A time when her friends were few and her life was precious. And yet, no matter how much she wished this were all simply true, that it meant nothing greater than her own loneliness, it was not so.

She wanted him to stay…because she wanted there to be _more_. More where there was nothing to be found.

“V, I cannot accept.”

_“Oh.”_

He continued quickly, as to cover his accidental rudeness. “It would put you in too much danger should I linger,” he explained earnestly. “I cannot.”

“Oh,” she said again. “Well…take care of yourself, then, Goro. Please. Please be safe.” She swallowed. She regretted the next words as she thought them, because she knew that they would change everything, but she said them anyway. They would be as a crinkled paper she could not remove the wrinkles from. “Don’t die…before I see you again. If I don’t hear from you…I don’t know if I would know what to do next.”

“You cannot place so much importance on my survival, V. I am disposable. Please do not think of me as anything more than trivial. It will not be worth your time. You are not a helpless victim, V, and I am not the answer to the problems you face. You are far more important to _my_ survival than I am yours, and are you not concerned that I could be using you? Do not forget this. I am nothing. But you are everything.”

“I know you’re not using me,” she said, and yet he was clearly not convinced with the way his eyes cast upwards to their left for a moment and then back to her face again.

“Am I not?” he asked, both rhetorically in theory and somehow a question of his own intentions, to his own self. V did not know what he thought of what he was doing with her.

“Not if I go willingly,” she said. “Not if I say _yes.”_

Takemura swallowed harshly, and V could see this by the way his cheeks moved slightly and then he held his mouth in a tight-lipped position.

“Goodnight, V. Thank you for Satori. I will treasure her."

“Goodnight, Takemura.”

“Wait,” V said again, quickly, stepping forward and tossing her hand out to stop the automatic door from closing behind him.

“Yes?” Takemura asked, making a fast turn back around at the sound of her voice.

“Have breakfast with me tomorrow," she said quickly.

She expected him to protest, to proclaim and warn her of the dangers of their repeated meetings…and yet he did not, instead simply responding with the most hopeful word V had ever known.

“Where?” he asked, and V felt her heart swell, though she did not know from what. The hopeful company of another person. The warmth that it promised to know another person. To be known. To be…to be…

_To be loved._

“Wait at the Cherry Blossom Market tomorrow morning;” she said. “The same spot as before. I’ll pick you up.”

“Until then,” he said, and bowed his head before taking a few steps away and then disappearing across the hallway and around the corner.

_To be loved._

In sleep, she dreamt of the inevitability of falling, anticipation and dread in equal measure.

_Love; the excitement of having something to look forward to._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Satori is an actual katana V can find under these exact circumstances during _The Heist,_ and it doesn't make sense to me how V could be walking around with something clearly worth millions and stolen and nobody ever notices. If Takemura was always with Saburo, how would he not notice V with the katana lol?


	4. I've Never Seen A Hero Like Me In A Sci-Fi

C H A P T E R F O U R

_I've Never Seen A Hero Like Me In A Sci-Fi_

By the following morning, Wakako Okada had not yet contacted V. This was to no surprise – she was simply a very busy woman – and V was not concerned at the lack of response in the slightest.

Takemura, however, was insistent.

Though they had parted on somewhat conclusive terms the previous night after the older man had left her apartment, Takemura continuously texted V throughout many hours, persisting in his absolute need – no, his downright _desperation_ – to learn whether or not Wakako would meet with them.

V was not entirely convinced this meeting was truly what was pressing at Goro’s patience oh, so much…or if there were a secret, ulterior motive he held for keeping V up through the night and into the early morning hours with an anxious text every thirty minutes or so.

Perhaps he was simply a truly neurotic worrier – this would have certainly fit his M.O., and V did not doubt for a second that Takemura Goro was a man who desired to be in control of all of the ducks in his line at every possible second, so his need to gain a solid advantage over this situation was an understandable one. And yet she did not take him for a man who needed the guidance of others, particularly not of V’s, someone so clearly lesser in skill and talent than himself.

As planned between the two of them, Takemura had been waiting on the dot for V the following morning at the Cherry Blossom Market bridge where she had asked him to.

“Where’s Satori?” V called out playfully as Takemura approached her where she had pulled up near him on Jackie’s bike. “Old girl couldn’t make it?”

Takemura smiled. “Satori is at home in bed. She was feeling under the weather.”

“Ohh…” V nodded solemnly, shaking her head at this truly tragic news. “I’m very sorry to hear that. When you see her again, tell her I said hello.”

“I am sure she would be glad to know you still think of her.”

“In any case,” V said cheerfully. “A very good morning to you, and if you would just join me here on my trusty steed, breakfast awaits. Hop on!” V turned to pat the empty seat behind her. She grabbed the spare helmet she had brought and held it out for him.

Takemura, eyes widened and stance defensive, was visibly… _concerned_ , to say the least.

“I am not sure that I am able to trust you at the helm of a vehicle such as this,” he said, examining the bike from handle to wheel with his eyes.

“What?” V teased. “Don’t wanna hold onto me real close, Goro?”

Takemura was taken off guard by this, V could tell, as he opened his mouth but said nothing. This was his tell. This was how V knew when she had _gotten_ him. If she could make the man speechless, she was either doing something terribly wrong or so very, terribly right. But she wasn’t sure which of these were the truth; not just yet.

“You are a ridiculous woman, V,” Takemura said, crossing over the space held between them and accepting the helmet she'd held out before her.

V nodded gleefully. “That’s what I thought,” she said, a goofy smile plastered upon her face.

Takemura placed the helmet securely on his head and then moved to settle onto the empty space behind V on the bike, his hands awkwardly shifting positions a few times as he decided where best to settle them.

“You can hold onto me; it’s okay,” V offered softly. “I promise I won’t report you for harassment.”

Takemura huffed in humor at her words, taking her allowance of initiative and wrapping his hands around her waist as close as he could while still maintaining a modicum of respect.

“You say that now, V,” he said, “but surely you do not believe that the NCPD would respond to simple complaints of domestic harassment. It would be all too easy to do much worse.”

“Much worse, you say?” V asked. She pushed back against him lightly, just enough that it could’ve been unintentional shifting around. “I think I might like to hear what this ‘much worse’ is.”

Whatever moment of cocky confidence Takemura had used in those words faded instantly, and he retreated from whatever he had propositioned by saying, “You never understand my meanings, V. I think you enjoy making me feel like an awkward old man.”

“I don’t know,” V said, clicking her tongue, “I think I heard you loud and clear on that one.” She dramatically placed her hand over her heart. “It’s obvious you’re fighting the urge to ravage me at every second, Goro. _It’s unbearable!_ You simply cannot control yourself at any given moment around me. Oh, the agony! Oh, the woeful shame of desire!”

Takemura shied away from her and lessened his grip on her waist. She could not see beneath the shield of his helmet – but surely, he would be blushing like a peach.

“Your glibness does you no credit, V,” he said. "And I am glad that you are able to find such humor in our circumstances." He tapped his fingers ever so slightly where they rested on her waist. “But I promise, I would not ravage you.”

“Truly?” V asked, turning her head to see him where he sat at her back.

“Truly,” he said.

V smiled to herself, a secret smile, all her own. She turned back to the bike and took the handles into her palms, kicking the engine into gear and preparing to pull away from the curb.

“What a gentleman,” she said.

Off and away from Japantown where she had picked him up, V headed back across the bridge towards where she had come from that morning.

“V, where is it that we are going?” Takemura said loudly, to be heard over the traffic and the bike.

“Little China,” V called out. “Up in Watson. There’s a little Chinese place there that I eat at, well, basically every day. I especially want you to try their youtiao. Nowhere else in the city makes it the way I like it.”

They headed up to the northern part of the city and entered a neighborhood very similar to Japantown, but of a distinctly Chinese ambiance, by contrast.

V navigated skillfully through the thin, crowded streets, possibly nearly knocking off a mirror or two on the random stray car parked on the curbs they passed.

She pulled up in front of a cute little two-story townhouse attached to a row of identical others. She cut the engine where they’d stopped and removed her helmet, shaking out her hair. The two of them stood from the bike.

“I lived right up there, when I was a little girl,” V said, pointing to two windows above the shop they’d stopped at with flower pots attached at the bases. “Let’s go inside.”

V hung her helmet on one handle of Jackie’s bike, and then took Takemura’s from his hold and placed it on the other handle.

A bell chimed above their heads as they entered through the door and the two of them were greeted by quiet jazz music playing from an unseen location in the room. A woman turned to them from behind a diner-esque counter as they entered.

“Goro,” V said, approaching with the ease of someone who had been there many times, “this is Hóng Yu Shen.”

V gestured respectfully with both hands to the small, aging woman behind the counter. Her hair was greying where once it had been stark black, and her eyes were as warm as chocolate-chip cookies, even from across the counter. She radiated kindness.

V leaned across the counter and shared a familial cheek kiss on each side with the woman. “And she,” V continued, taking a seat at the counter and leaning on her left hand, “makes the _best_ food in the entire city.”

Yu Shen waved V off with a sweet smile and an innocent eye roll. “Oh, please, child. Do not say untrue things.”

Takemura gave Yu Shen a respectful bow and the older woman looked at him in pleasant surprise.

“Surely you are not a native of Night City,” Yu Shen said. “The men of this city do not carry even a whiff of what you walked in here with. I could sense you were not from here the moment you opened the door.”

“Ah,” Takemura said, his head bowed again for a moment. “You are correct. I am simply here for a short while. Visiting from Japan. My name is Takemura Goro.”

“Oh,” Yu Shen said with a short bow of her own and a smile. “Well, ようこそ.” _{y_ _ō_ _koso}_

Takemura bowed his head back again in earnest. “ありがとうございます.” _{Arigatou gozaimasu}_

Yu Shen considered Takemura for a few moments as he approached behind V, placed his left hand on her mid-back for a second, and then took a seat by her side at the counter.

Her eyes tossing between both V and Takemura, Yu Shen asked, “Boyfriend?”

V rose her head from her arm and shook her hands in the negative to this. “Oh, no, 阿姨.” _{_ _ā_ _y_ _í_ _}_ V said. “Just a friend.”

“A friend who can _become_ a boyfriend? A boyfriend who can then become a husband?”

V laughed awkwardly and tapped the table with her fingertips. “Oh, I don’t know about that, Yu-yu.” She swallowed but her throat was dry. “That’s not really…he’s not… _you know.”_

V cringed. She wished the floor would swallow her up.

“We are but only friends,” Takemura said kindly, swooping in to save the situation. Yu Shen raised her eyebrows, clearly unconvinced.

She waved her hand off, though, and said, “Who needs a husband anyway? No good for anything at all. Only good for eating all my food.” She turned away from them to tie an apron around her waist. “Now, speaking of people who eat all of my food, what are we looking for this morning?”

“The very best?” V asked, tongue between her teeth as she smiled cheekily.

“Nothing less than,” Yu Shen said, reaching out and holding V’s chin between her fingers for a moment and then retreating to the kitchen.

Takemura and V talked for a short while about anything that wasn’t death and despair related, and V felt that this could be a wonderful moment to live inside of. This togetherness. This peacefulness. This having food and talking. Coffee at their side, which Yu Shen had brought out to them, laughs and smiles upon their lips. This could be living. If only she could catch it inside of a jar as she would a firefly in the night.

Yu Shen returned shortly with breakfast, and had prepared a mix of American and Chinese fair. Eggs and toast, very expected, but also rice and dough-sticks and steamed milk buns. V had not relaxed at a meal in so very long. Not since Jackie had been gone.

V caught her eggs between the chopsticks Yu Shen had given them and fumbled them as they slipped from her grasp. She chased them across the plate as they slid around.

“You eat like a baby,” Takemura said, his own prowess with the chopsticks clearly unrivaled.

“It’s because I didn’t have your secret ninja chopstick training at Arasaka,” V said, poking him with the tips of her sticks.

“That is very true,” he said with a smirk. “No one can be as talented at everything as I am.”

Yu Shen, who had disappeared again to the kitchen, returned to them with a few takeout boxes, which she stacked on the table in front of V and Takemura.

“Eat, eat,” she said, waving her right hand to indicate V to speed up. “And take some with you when you go, too! You are getting too skinny.” She poked V’s sides with her pointer fingers and V quivered in ticklish avoidance of the taunt. “You need meat on you, girl.”

Yu Shen turned to Takemura to see him smiling at the situation and the woman gave him a considering look. “Your friend looks tough; you should eat what he is eating.”

Takemura gave V a teasingly proud smile and she leaned against him on his stool.

“Oh, don’t let it go to your head,” she said.

“It is already there,” Takemura said, smiling.

“Of course it is.”

They finished their breakfast with pleasant banter; V forgetting for the very first time since she had been with Takemura that they were anything more complicated than friends having a meal. Maybe this was living. Eating food together. Telling another person – _I hope that you have enough to eat._

Yu Shen insisted on giving the two of them a tour of the house, though V had seen it at least a thousand times before. Takemura indulged in this to please Yu Shen, and the older woman just gobbled up his sweetness. V was sure that she would get a toothache from it all.

An hour and a half had passed since they’d arrived, and V decided that it was time to move on. She did not want to linger long there, not under these circumstances. She ushered Takemura towards the exit, to which Yu Shen gave him way too many goodbyes and good wishes.

“We’ve really got to get going, 阿姨,” V said, quickly trying to wrap things up there. She was feeling anxious and didn’t want Takemura to catch on. “I’ll call you tonight.”

“Tell me about your handsome friend when you do,” Yu Shen said, handing the tied-off bag of takeout containers to V. “I want to know it all. Yes, everything. If you won’t date him, tell him I have no husband.”

“I’m sure Yeong-in wouldn’t be happy to hear you say that, Yu-yu,” V said as she took the bag, leaning to kiss Yu Shen on the cheek.

“Oh, Yeong-in doesn’t do anything for me,” she said with a wave of her hand. “All he is good for is sitting around and watching my TV.”

“I’ll tell him you said that,” V said.

“Oh, I tell him all the time!” Yu Shen said. “He will not be better for anything, that man. But you know I love him.”

“I know, Yu-yu.” V kissed her cheek again. She gave her a serious look, one hand clasped to Yu Shen’s two. “Stay safe, okay?”

Yu Shen winked. “I always do.”

V scurried to the exit, turning to give one last wave goodbye before heading out the door with Takemura.

“Ask your friend to stay over with you!” Yu Shen called after them. “Ask him to stay forever!”

The door chimed behind them as they exited and V bounded towards the bike. Takemura trailed slowly behind.

“She reminds me of the women in my own family,” he said fondly as they walked. “Of my mother…but, that was a very long time ago.”

As they approached Jackie’s bike where they had parked it, Takemura maintained a short distance behind V. She balanced the takeout containers on the seat of the motorcycle while she reached to grab their helmets. She tucked her own beneath her arm and turned to hand Takemura his.

He accepted it into his hands and turned it over to look at the front of it absentmindedly, clearly stalling for time, V thought. She glanced at him suspiciously but ultimately let it go and put her own helmet on.

“You were very keen to leave,” he said.

“Well,” V said, “you’re always saying how we shouldn’t stay in one place too long. So, I was just following orders, captain.”

“Why did you not mention how Yu Shen is your aunt? Your father’s sister, yes?” he asked softly, and looked up at her.

V, now seated on the bike and with the bag of takeout containers on her lap, looked down at the curb which one foot was up on. She pursed her lips, visible as the shield of her helmet was flipped up. She would not meet Takemura’s eyes.

“Because you clearly already knew it,” she said.

Takemura stepped closer to her, still holding onto his helmet and not yet putting it on.

“Why do you hide who you are, V?” he asked curiously.

“Because she’s the only person I have left in this entire city,” V said. “In this entire country.” She looked back to Yu Shen’s place, up to the windows, then down to the streets around them. The early morning sun shone in her eyes and she squinted. “She’s the only blood relative I have left. If she’s connected to me, then she’s as good as gone. It’s not like she has, I don’t know, Tyger Claws protection. They don’t run in this side of town.” V picked at the plastic knot at the top of the bag. “She’s just an innocent woman. I keep her safe. Me. Not anybody else.”

Takemura put the helmet on at last and slipped onto the bike with her, though she did not seem to respond to his presence behind her as she had before.

“You have a rich heritage, V,” he said, leaned slightly to try and look at her as best he could, but she would not turn to him. “And yet you say nothing of it.”

“Let’s keep it that way,” V said, though so quietly that Takemura could barely hear her at all.

V handed the bag of takeout to Takemura and he held it tightly with one arm, trying to hold onto both the boxes and V at the same time. She kicked the ignition into gear and began to pull away from their parking spot.

They drove in silence down the twisting highways of Night City, neither of them even attempting conversation. V drove faster than normal, and she could feel Takemura’s nervously intense grip on her.

She neared her apartment building and slowed at a red light. She huffed out and checked the time on her eye implants.

“I need to work on something back at my apartment,” she said loudly to him, to make sure he would hear. “Do you want me to drop you off anywhere?”

“You are upset,” Takemura said.

“No,” V said tiredly. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Okay,” she said. “Fine. Do you want to come inside, then?”

“Oh,” Takemura said, “oh…I… _okay_. But only for a moment.”

V rode into the parking garage and pulled into her usual spot. The two of them dismounted and removed their helmets, hanging them upon the bike and then going to the elevator.

V pushed the button to call the machine down and tapped her foot anxiously. She was a bundle of nerves.

The elevator arrived – _after forever_ – and they walked inside. V chose the button for her floor and then stood away from Takemura in the corner, closed in on herself.

“What do you need to work on?” Takemura asked curiously. V kicked an empty soda can that was rolling around on the elevator floor.

“Huh?” she asked, distracted.

“You said that you would be working on something.”

“Oh. I’m upgrading my security system,” she said flatly.

Takemura nodded, but said nothing else. He looked up at the lights in the top of the elevator shaft.

When they finally arrived to V’s room, she kicked off her sneakers inside the door and they fumbled to the side along with her other pairs of shoes. She put the bag of takeout containers on her bed.

“Make yourself comfortable,” she said dismissively, and then stalked off to her storage room.

Takemura looked around the room briefly and then removed his own shoes. He placed them neatly by the door and then organized her haphazard ones beside his in a line.

V returned momentarily with a ladder and unfolded it in front of the door to her apartment. She climbed the ladder swiftly to mess with a strange metal apparatus hanging from the ceiling which ran along multiple cords to the door.

Takemura circled around the ladder, arms crossed over his chest, looking up at the ceiling. He smiled smugly.

“Your ‘upgraded’ security system is a giant hammer rigged to swing down and hit whoever breaks the door open?” he asked.

V looked down at him from atop the ladder and gave him a look like a crazed toddler caught drawing on the walls in permanent marker. “I started it last night, after you left. You have a better idea?” she asked.

Takemura scoffed humoredly. “I surely do not have a more creative one, I should like to say. Your enemies will assuredly be taken aback by…how is it called? The element of surprise.”

V turned back to her work and messed with the various do-dads and pulleys she’d arraigned into her makeshift attack system.

“If you would like my assistance,” Takemura said, “I could offer you some security advice. I have certainly tinkered with a fair share of machines in my years.”

She looked back to him and said, “Can you come up with some machine that shoots lasers that’ll instantly incinerate anyone who breaks into my apartment?”

“I…no.” He shook his head. “Unfortunately, not.”

V climbed down from the ladder and regarded her creation. She moved the ladder to the side.

She looked over at Takemura as he regarded her amusedly.

“You want to test it out?” she asked.

“I think that I will say no.”

V shrugged and then walked and flopped down on the couch. Takemura watched her.

“Something is wrong, V?”

“I don’t know,” she said. She huffed and lay on her side.

Takemura crossed to where she lay and calmly sat down the couch from her, hands placed on his knees.

“You are restless. You are upset with me.”

V shook her head against a couch pillow. “No,” she said. “I’m not.”

She rolled onto her back and hugged a pillow to her chest.

“I’m just…scared,” she said. “I’m running out of time.”

“You did not like that I brought up your family.”

V nodded. “I don’t want them to be a part of this. I want to die quietly and not bother their memory. I had a chance at a long life and I blew it.”

“You still have opportunity for a long life, V. I am certain this is true.”

“How can you know that?” she asked, sitting up to face him where he sat. He looked at her with kindly eyes.

“You have a high tolerance to the worst things in this life, V,” he said, reaching out to touch his hand against her own and pulling away. “This creates a strong person. A strong heart. Humans adapt to the worst of situations. Scarred skin is tougher, but can only be strong at the places where there was hurting.”

V let out a sigh and put her hands over her face. Her shoulders fell and she sunk into herself where she sat.

“When I received my cybernetics from Arasaka, I was given no anesthesia.”

V looked up from her hands and said quietly, “W-what?”

Takemura was looking out the window of her room.

“If you show even the slightest quiver of the lip,” he continued, “the littlest hint of a pain, then you are released.”

V remained quiet. He had silenced her.

“That’s horrible...” she said. A lame response, admittedly.

Takemura looked to her. “That is how you learn to put aside your worldly emotions. I cannot protect someone else if I am busy thinking of myself. Duty must always come first.”

“So,” V said, “if you were hurt, you’d save someone else before saving yourself?”

He nodded.

“In the split second that the person in my protection has become injured, mere moments between life and death…these are the moments that I live inside of. I cannot afford to hesitate. Hesitation creates death. Hesitation wreaks destruction. And I cannot stand to fail.”

V looked down at her feet. “Why are you telling me this?” she asked quietly.

“Because you live in those moments too,” he said. “Between life and death. You are not mortal anymore, V. You are the spaces in between.”

She sighed sadly and buried her face back into her hands, searching for comfort in the hiddenness.

“Can I see them?” she asked from behind her fingers.

“What?” Takemura asked.

“Can I see the rest of what you’ve had done?” she asked, peering out at him through the gaps between her fingers. “I can only ever see your neck. What…does the rest look like?”

He sat quietly for a moment, watching her watch him from her hiding place behind her palms, and then he stood.

His jacket, he slid from his shoulders and let fall to the cushions of the couch behind him. His shirt, he unbuttoned slowly, and V watched as he carefully undid each one. It was as protective of him as a layer of skin. V wasn’t sure that she should see him this way. He discarded the shirt with his coat.

His neck was only the beginning of it.

Twists of cooled metal and steel apparatuses spanned the surface of his upper chest, shoulders, arms, crisscrossing and twirling around like the machinations of the inside of a clock. He was an enigma of flesh and steel beneath his button-up shirt, all intricate systems and subtle strangeness…and yet beauty and mystique in equal portion. The metallic lines curled less and less as they descended down his chest, giving way to the human man underneath. A man with a human stomach, a human waist. What wasn’t metal was finely tattooed skin, the likes of which V had only ever seen on the Yakuza of decades’ past. And at the very center of it all, a small glass window which gave way to the sight of his heart beating inside.

Despite all of this, he was still remarkably, a mortal man.

V stood, crossing silently to where he stood, and, slowly, to leave him the opportunity to decline her – she reached her right hand out to place on his chest. It was warm.

“Why you would choose this…” she said quietly, her gaze transfixed on his heart. “I don’t think I could ever understand.”

“V?”

V cautiously stood in front of him where he stood, hesitating and folding and breaking in her thoughts and actions. She let out a long breath of air and then moved away from him to unravel the pantyhose she had been wearing beneath her skirt. Takemura made an awkward, surprised face and looked away from her.

She kicked the hose away and took a step back to show him what she had been hiding.

Her right leg, entirely as expected. Her left, however – a stark white porcelain recreation of a human leg attached to her body at the mid-thigh. Intricate lines of forest green trailed all across its surface, like vines. At the knee and ankle, somewhat bendable joints, like a doll.

“I lost my leg when I was nineteen,” she said, turning her prosthetic slightly to the left and right, to show it off. “That was…four years ago, now.”

He was speechless again. She apparently had that effect on him. Maybe she was scaring him away. On the couch beside where he stood, she sat, and he did too. He turned to look at her body, unable to avoid staring at her leg. She allowed him.

“My prosthetic is beautiful,” she said, running her hand down her porcelain calf. “And I have Viktor to thank for it. But when I see it, I remember who I was on the day that I stepped on that mine. And I’m terrified all over again.”

“I noticed it first when you were in your coma,” Takemura said, still not looking at her face and instead only looking at her leg. “Though I thought not to mention it. I did not want to push you. You stepped on a mine?”

V rested her hand on the leg and thumbed across her knee. “When I was nineteen…I escaped the city during a bombing in Japantown of the building I lived in.” She took a deep breath and held it for a moment, then released. “From what it seemed, there was some kind of…organized _attack_ by the Tyger Claws on the area and…and they didn’t care who got caught in the crossfire. That was where I’d been living at the time. I ran as fast as I could, but I didn’t know where to go. I made it as far as the city line when I accidentally crossed onto someone’s property at the edge of the Badlands and then…I thought I’d died. The Bakkers saved my life, and I stayed with them until this year.”

V stood, pacing over to near her bed and looking out the window, then vacantly walked around the apartment.

“I didn’t find out until later that the Tyger Claws weren’t really at fault,” she continued. “A false cyberpsycho threat had been called into the zone and MAX-TAC swatted the area. They blamed the Tyger Claws because the area was heavily Japanese and they were an easy target to shake off the blame onto from the government having falsely bombed my street. They just wanted a reason to murder some poor people.”

“Why did you return here after you left, V? Why do you come back if this place carries so much hurt for you?”

“Because this city just won’t let me die.”

V sat beside him again on the couch, close this time. Closer than they had ever been. Their bodies touched.

“I may have my life,” she said, “but I’ll never have my leg back. And _nothing_ would ever make me want to go through that again. Not willingly. I don’t understand the people in this world who choose to have their limbs removed, their skin torn. For what, strength? I didn’t get to choose. I had no options.”

“You are a remarkable woman, V.”

She looked up at him where he was looking at her the way he had looked at Satori. She didn’t want this.

“Oh?” she said. “I’m not ridiculous anymore?”

“Only when it suits you,” he said. “And it does.”

He put his hand on her slumped shoulder and she maintained solemn eye-contact with him.

“V,” he said. “I want to know you as _you_ know you. You do not have to hide.”

He reached out his right hand to place on her face and swept her hair away where it had fallen over her eyes. He rubbed his thumb across her cheek and spread a tear that had fallen.

She flinched at his touch.

“I-I am sorry.” He stood suddenly and took a step away. “I have overstepped my bounds.”

“Goro - ” V reached out, but he moved away from her hand.

“I am sorry, V. I should not have come here. It was a mistake.” He looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry.”

“Takemura,” she said, standing and stepping closer to him. “I didn’t mean to scare you away.”

“You did nothing, V. I am the mistake.”

He retrieved his coat and shirt quickly and re-clothed himself. He obviously looked like someone who had dressed in a hurry – shirt undone and barely buttoned, coat half hanging off of one shoulder, hair falling from the previously neat bun it’d been held in prior.

“You should not allow me to endanger you any further,” he said, tucking in his shirt. He crossed the room to the door. “I do not want to dangle something in front of you that cannot be possible. That cannot _last.”_

“So you really do think I’m going to die?” 

Takemura’s eyes shattered before her. And V had her answer.

“Go,” she said softly. She sat down on the floor of her room and hugged her knees. “Go if you want to. It doesn’t matter.”

And he did. He went away. And she was all alone again. The door closed behind him. Maybe forever.

V knelt on the floor and put her palms down flat on the carpet. She clawed at her thumbs with the nails of the rest of her fingers and subdued a pained cry from somewhere inside.

How to spend her final days was tormenting her at every moment of her life. And yet she pushed away everyone who would get close to her. Drove them away.

She was desperate for a sense of belonging she would find nowhere at all.

She curled onto the floor into a fetal position and pressed her hands onto her head.

_“V.”_

Johnny placed a hand over her hair where she lay. She knew that it was him without looking because nobody else could have spontaneously appeared at her side.

“C’mon, V,” he said calmly. “You’ve still got fight left in ya.”

She said nothing, just closed her eyes and tried to remain as still as possible.

“You’re not this pathetic, are you?” he taunted, but she didn’t respond. “Stop pussy-footing around and get up. _Get up!”_

V rolled over onto her back and looked up at the ceiling of her apartment. “Will I know when it’s over?”

She lolled her head to the side to look where Johnny stood, her arms out like an eagle and flat on the carpet.

Johnny sighed. “Kid, I don’t even know when it begins.”

Beside her, Johnny sat down, left arm tossed over his bent left knee and the other leg out straight.

“Don’t let them hold you down, V. You know what this life is all about?"

“No. But I bet you’re gonna tell me,” V said. Johnny scoffed.

“Never let them turn you into somebody you’re not.” He tapped his head. “That’s how they get you forever. They get you once, they got you for life. Never let them take away who you are. Fucking _never.”_

“I’m running out of time every second," V said. Her head hurt. "I can feel myself becoming less.”

“So, you take time by the reigns and you drive the fucking time chariot into the sky! You say where you go. You say, _‘I choose’._ You say, _‘I say when’.”_

“Everybody who gets close to me ends up dying,” V said. She stared out at nothing. “I don’t even know who I am anymore. I get mad, and…and I don’t know why. I feel fear, and I don’t know why. I’m losing everything. Every day that goes by I struggle to remember the names of my own family more and more. I don't know who I am anymore."

Johnny stood up angrily and put his hands on his hips. He paced the room and she watched him have his little rockerboy tantrum.

“Don’t let that corporate ronin come in here and boss you the fuck around, V! You’re the samurai here, not him. Never fucking him. Jesus Christ, don’t lay down and die this easily.”

“Takemura is a good man.” V sat up from the floor and scooted to lean her back against the wall between the couch and bed. “And he’s my only chance right now. At…at _something._ And I'm screwing it all up."

 _“Ouch,”_ Johnny said dramatically, grabbing his heart like she’d shot him there. “You’re gonna make me fuckin' jealous, V.”

“Nothing to be jealous of,” she said, shrugging it off. “Doesn’t matter anyway.”

“Well, fucking fantastic then!” he said. “If he gets anywhere near us, I don’t think I’ll be able to restrain myself from taking us for a little trip to night-night town and popping down to the ripper to get some iron teeth installed in your vagina.”

“Could you not talk to me like that?” V asked quietly. “It doesn’t feel good when you treat me like I don’t matter.”

“Oh, well…fuck me, then, huh? V doesn’t like it! Hm. Guess I’ll just go be a good little boy, somewhere else, far, far away. And not saying anything! Nope. Not a thing. Not a thing at all. Anything at all. Nope. Nada. Nein.”

“Johnny, please.”

“This is a team effort, babe,” he said. “If you get fucked, so do I. And I do _not_ get fucked.”

“Stop.”

“I won’t just take a fucking backseat to the V and Arasaka show where you just lay down and get fucked by the man!”

**_“Johnny, stop!”_ **

V fell down beside the wall and shivered in pain. Her vision blurred and glitched, the cybernetics in her eyes unable to debug the system error the Relic was causing.

Johnny rushed to her side and placed his silver hand against her waist. “V? V, are you okay? I’m here. I am right fucking here, V. Talk to me. _Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me how to help.”_

A shrill, strained sound came from her throat and she curled in on herself as several full-body shocks washed over her. Everything was pain, and nothing was living. This wasn’t living. This was dying at every living moment.

“V, I’ve got you, girl. I’m here. And I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

She cried, but she wished she wouldn’t. She didn’t want him to see her like this, but the pain was so strong that she couldn’t stop the tears from coming out. Every muscle in her body was weak and she felt like she couldn’t do anything at all. Nothing was in her control and she had to be forced to drown in the waves of the parasite that was slowly eating away at her brain.

Johnny moved to reach his hands beneath her and pulled her up into his arms easily, cradling her head against his chest and holding her under her back and knees.

V felt like nothing against him, and somehow, she could feel herself as Johnny sensing the body movements that he was making.

She was host and parasite at the same time.

He rushed her to the bathroom and placed her at the bottom of the shower, propping her up against the wall and holding her with his metal arm to keep her from slipping down. With his free hand, he reached up and turned the water on, which rushed down on the both of them.

He put his hands firmly on V’s shoulders and held her steadily in place.

“C’mon, V.” He was crouched in front of her. “You can push through this, V. You’re not done if I’m not done and _I’m not fucking done.”_ He grabbed her chin and held her face up. Her skin and muscles were loose in his hand, V unable to control any part of her body outside of her eyes.

“Look at me, V,” Johnny said, checking her eyes for signs of life. “Just keep looking at me.”

He exited the shower frantically and V could hear him rummaging through the bathroom cabinet, and she wondered if she were the one doing it all and didn’t know it. She didn’t know who was doing what, who was where, or how. The water touched her skin and it burned like acid.

Johnny rounded the shower corner again and grabbed her roughly by the shoulder with his left hand, his right shaking up a MaxDoc inhaler.

“Take this,” he said. “And, uh, sorry for what I’m about to do.”

He pushed the MaxDoc between her lips and pressed the button. She coughed around the intruding item and then he tossed it to the shower floor.

Maneuvering her body down the wall and flat onto her back, Johnny carefully lay her out and blocked the flow of water with his body as he crouched over her.

“Forget the next ten seconds,” he said, and quickly scanned over her chest area with his knuckles before slamming the side of his right fist into the center of her chest.

She screamed out in pain and rolled over where she lay on the shower floor, her hands shooting out to regain control of the situation. She gasped out to pull in an intense breath.

“Oh my god,” she said, rolling back over onto her back and letting the water shower over her front and splatter her face. Johnny stood above her, himself audibly breathing heavy.

“Jesus, _fuck_ , V. You can fucking take a punch.”

And she laughed. She pulled her hands up to the place where he had hit her and groaned in pain. But she laughed.

Everything could be okay.

“And you can throw one,” she said, patting the place of impact his fist had had.

“Thanks,” he said.

“No problem,” she said back.

Johnny turned the water off and stood over her, both of them huffing to catch their shared breath. He wiped his forehead on the back of his right forearm.

“Better be fucking glad I didn’t use my metal arm,” he said, and then reached out his human hand for her to grab onto.

She accepted the offer with both of her own hands and he pulled her up from the shower floor with ease. The two of them were drenched with shower water.

“Guess I really do make you wet, huh?” Johnny said.

V laughed and then cringed, tossing her hand onto the place of impact on her center chest again. “You…you…ew.” She coughed and laughed at the same time, her voice weak and exhausted.

Johnny laughed and reached his arm under her arms, across her back, tossing her right arm over his neck to give her his body to lean on. “You so fucking owe me now.”

“You…wish…” she whispered, her throat barely a sad croak and a half.

Johnny helped her walk out of the shower and then leaned her against the sink. He grabbed a towel from the rack beside them and put it around her.

“You need to get out of these clothes,” he said.

“Is that…” V paused to breathe. “Is that…the best pick-up line…you got?”

“You’ll have a bruise where I hit you,” he said, sweeping her wet hair away where it stuck to her and trying to take a look at the space in the center of her chest. “Sorry.”

“Been worse,” she said.

“Leg blown off in the desert and laying in a pool of your own blood?” he said, letting out a swift whistle. “You’re a fucking gladiator, I’d say.”

“Stop being nice to me,” she said. “It’s weird.”

“When I know you’re not gonna snuff us right here on the bathroom floor, I’ll fucking kick your ass. Good enough?”

“Awesome,” she said. “Looking forward to it.”

“I won’t make you,” he said, “but you really should change. You’ll get water everywhere.” He paused, and then added, “Dumbass.”

“Call me something else,” she said.

_“Cunt.”_

“Thank you.” She laughed. “Never thought I’d be so happy to be - ” She clutched her chest and Johnny reached out to help. She tapped that same spot on her chest with her fingertips and bit hard on her lips to distract from the pain. “Never thought…I’d be so happy to be…insulted.”

She waved him away. “Leave me…leave me here…and I’ll change.”

“Can you fucking stand?” Johnny asked in exasperation.

He let her go and she attempted to move away from the sink, but her legs shook and she fell to her knees. He caught her before she landed.

“You know those wiggly things they put outside car dealerships that blow in the wind and it looks like they’re dancing?” Johnny asked, and V nodded. “That’s fucking you.”

“That’s a...stupid…joke.” V laughed, but the laugh hurt. She coughed. “I hate you.”

“I’ll get you some clothes,” he said, and left her where she sat on the bathroom floor in front of the sink.

She watched him disappear around the corner towards her bed and then return with her pajamas.

“Here, let me help you.”

“Nu-uh,” V said, pushing his arms away. “No way.”

“So you want to sit here and do nothing?”

V nodded. “Mm-hm.”

“I’ll close my eyes.”

“Your eyes are…my eyes,” V said weakly. “If I can see me, so can…so can you.”

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“Awesome,” V said in a strained almost laugh. “Definitely knew you were watching me in the shower all this time.”

“Just put your arms up, you baby,” he said.

She threw her hands into the arm and he reached to pull her soaked blouse off, placing it beside where she sat. He undid her bra with his right hand and slipped it off over her shoulders, to which she covered her chest as soon as the clothing was away.

“I live inside of you,” he said. “Nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Doesn’t…doesn’t make it any…any better.”

He took the pajama shirt from the side and slid it over her arms and torso and she lowered her arms. He slid off her skirt and underwear swiftly and replaced them with her pajama pants.

“See,” he said. “Didn’t do anything I shouldn’t have.”

“You want a medal?” V asked.

“Could do with one,” Johnny said, and pulled her up from the floor, leaning her against him.

“Let’s walk you to the bed, now, babe.”

He carefully guided her to her bed and helped her lay down on the covers, then pulled them out from under her and tucked her in.

He moved to walk away then, but she grabbed his hand before he could.

Any water that had previously been on him had disappeared and he’d returned to his normal non-wet state.

“Johnny?” V asked quietly.

“Yes?”

“Lay with me, for a while?”

“You got it.”

She weakly shuffled closer to the wall of her bed cubicle to make room for him beside her. He lay down on his back and crossed his legs at the ankle, hands clasped over his chest.

V watched him breathe, watched his chest rise and fall beneath his hands.

“Johnny?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Thank you.”

She waited a moment and thought that he would say nothing, but then he simply said, “Yep.”

V closed her eyes and tried to focus on anything other than the whispers of pain spanning across her whole body. She thought of the morning she’d spent with Takemura. She thought of her visit with Yu Shen. She thought of the Satori blade.

“V?”

She opened one eye and peered over at Johnny beside her.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“Nice tits.”

She laughed weakly and rolled over onto her right side, facing the wall.

“Thank you, Johnny.”

“You’re welcome, V.”


	5. Vacant Are My Nightmares, Rest Becomes My Nowhere

**C H A P T E R F I V E**

_Vacant Are My Nightmares, Rest Becomes My Nowhere_

Johnny stayed with V throughout the late morning and afternoon, riding out the highs and lows of the Relic’s malfunctions which were, bit by bit, taking their inevitable toll on her physical and mental health. Whether they both wanted to acknowledge it or not, truly the chip was burning away at her brain every moment they did nothing to stop it.

It was typical of Johnny to disappear quickly after he appeared, popping in for but a moment to make a snide comment and then fading away again, but that day, he did not, for the very first time. Surely, he must have remained visible inside of her apartment for at least five hours straight.

V was unused to the phantom man sticking around – though this was not the great tragedy she would have considered it just days prior. He behaved himself, though she knew this was only a reaction to her having been struggling that day. Meaning he would surely return to his usual vindictive self at the slightest sight of her recovery.

However, this event had caused her to understand one thing.

There was someone beneath Johnny. Someone inside his heart who was not Johnny Silverhand at all. Somebody who cared, somebody who thought things worth thinking – somebody for whom there was hope. Hope that V could get better. Hope that they could survive this. Hope that life could be more than it was.

Hope meant that Johnny wanted things. And wanting was the most human thing of all. Perhaps they were not so different.

By the following day, at mid-afternoon, V found herself on call with Wakako Okada, the older woman approving V's request for a meeting with her.

V smiled from ear-to-ear at this news, though this was squashed near instantly when she remembered that Takemura quite possibly did not want to continue working together, not since she apparently repulsed him so fervently that he could not bear to remain in the same room as her for more than fifteen minutes.

She did not know which of them had overcompensated for their insecurities more than the other.

Takemura fleeing from her presence was surely the reaction she elicited at her inherent awfulness. She could not blame him. Anyone would run if only they knew how quite intolerable she truly was.

Or it could be true that the man was just a gigantic ball of awkward feelings and thoughts all wrapped together under a shiny ribbon which could barely hold his hair in its bun.

For someone of such esteem, he was clearly not a people person. This was the clear result of spending most of his life with one extremely old man. V tried to think of this in her favor.

When she was off the phone with Wakako, V headed downstairs of her building to the parking garage.

While walking, V pressed the call button on Takemura’s contact. Surely it was unwise to have saved him into her phone, but she wanted to have this little thing. His name in her phone lived there like a toothbrush of a lover in the bathroom. Something that meant _they were there._

He did not answer.

“Hey,” V began, her voice cooing in a kind of dissuade of any lingering tension between the two. “I, uh…finally got that call from Wakako Okada. She’s, uh, she’s willing to meet us. Told me to just drop by any time after four, this afternoon. Mm. She’s in Japantown, you know, so…so I, I’m gonna do that. Uh. If you happen to get back to me before then, we can…we can set that up. And…and go together. You know, if you want. Or something. Okay. So. Goodbye. Call me back. Or not. Yeah.”

V ended the call reluctantly and pressed the back of her hand which was holding the phone against her forehead. She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m so lame.” She blew out a deflating breath of air, herself a sad balloon.

V approached her little red Makigai two-seater and got inside, the car chiming with a high-pitched _"Konnichiwa!"_ as she entered. She closed the door behind her.

 _'What’re you doin’ callin’ that idiot back, V?’_ Johnny appeared in the passengers’ seat, feet up on the dash haphazardly. _‘Not after he ran outta your apartment like he’d never seen a woman before.’_

“That wasn’t anything, Johnny,” V said. “Don’t make it anything. I understand why he left.” She swallowed. “Things are just hard, and…and this all would be tough for anybody. I don't blame him.”

_'Oh, well what a kind and compassionate person you are, V. Call the fucking Pope, we’ve got ourselves a little Miss Mary Magdalene here. Ready to lay down and die for the fuckups of somebody else?’_

“Somebody else?” V scoffed in snide. “You mean _you?”_

 _‘Sure,’_ he said. _‘The honorary Mayor of fuckup town is sittin’ right here in your car. And you’re talking to him even though he’s invisible. Is this really the time to be blowin’ smoke up my ass? You want a dick measuring contest of fuckupery, I’ll give you one. Got a long list of grievances I could air.’_

“Arasaka Tower was a suicide mission, Johnny," she said point-blank. "What did you think was going to happen? How did you think that was gonna go?”

 _‘I think little cunt girls who talk too much like to say a lotta stuff about things they don't know anything about.”_ He flicked open a lighter and burned the end of a cigarette between his lips. _‘Mind your own business, V.’_

“Well, if your brain is my brain, then your business is my business,” she said, shoving her thumb in his direction and then her own. “And I specialize _specifically_ in the business of being one, annoying. And two, incredibly nosy.”

_‘You probe anybody else like this?’_

“Only when I **really** like them.”

Johnny rolled his eyes and flicked away his cigarette. It disappeared into the air. He reshuffled his boots on the dash and crossed his arms over his chest, sinking down in the seat and letting his sunglasses slip down his nose. _‘You’re a real piece a’ work, huh?’_

“So.” V held up her hand near Johnny as if holding an invisible newscaster microphone. “Arasaka Tower. Suicide mission or worst attempt at a coup ever?”

 _‘The former,’_ he said. _‘Didn’t want to live in a world without the person I cared about most in it with me. Next question.’_

“Okay. Who was this person you cared about most in the world?”

Johnny made a buzzer sound. _‘Nope. Out of bounds. Try again.’_

“Alright,” she said. “Why did Saburo Arasaka wanna download your mind onto a chip?”

_‘You think I know what that old fucker was thinking?’_

“Maybe he was a fan,” V suggested.

Her phone pinged in her pocket, vibrating against her thigh. She reached to grab it.

______

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _I will meet you in Japantown._ [3:44 PM]

______

Johnny groaned dramatically. If it were possible to have his irises stuck in the back of his head from too aggressively rolling his eyes, this would have happened.

_'Can we be done with this piece of shit?’_

“Think about it like this,” V said, turned to Johnny. “If we don’t work with him, he could turn me in to Arasaka as a scapegoat. So…keep your enemies close, right?”

 _'You don’t fucking actually believe that, V.’_ He scoffed. _‘You just want that guy to come in here and tell you about his honor or his pride **again** so you can say, _‘Wow, Goro, that’s soooooo interesting.’ _Get fucked.’_

______

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Be there shortly. Will crouching tiger be crouching?_ [3:48 PM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _He will assuredly be standing where you can see him._ [3:50 PM]

______

When she closed her phone, Johnny was gone again, and even if he had been tormenting her, she was not as welcome to his disappearance as normal. It was a comfort to have spent so much consistancy with one person for the first time in a while.

V buckled up and circled through the levels of the parking garage and then turned out onto the streets of Night City. She made quick work of the path to Japantown, excited at the prospect of seeing Takemura again. 

_No. Not that._

She was excited to be one step closer to having this chip removed from her head, surely.

Takemura was a means to an end. If this was how he saw her, then this was how she would regard him.

V parked at the end of Jig-Jig Street and made her way to the usual place, the usual spot. Takemura was already standing there, overlooking the street below the bridge.

“Hi,” V said softly as she approached, not closing the distance by much. He looked up quickly. She wondered if he had waited long. “I’m glad you’re, you know. Alive.”

Takemura rubbed the back of his neck. “Yes. I, too, am glad to see that you are not dead.”

“Not yet, at least,” V added.

“Well, we will try to prolong this 'not dead' for as long as possible, yes?” Takemura said.

And he smiled.

It was all okay. V would not mention the previous day. Though truly Takemura would not be there if her eyewitness account of the truth was not crucial to his survival. She had to remember this. He would always come back to her. Because he had to.

"Well," he said, "let us not waste time."

V nodded and led the way through the path of the red-light district to Wakako Okada's Pachinko Parlor. 

Inside the building, they were greeted by touristy Japanese music blasting over unseen speakers, and dozens of Pachinko machines clattering with chips and exclaiming different themed phrases and expressions.

"It is like I am at home in Tokyo," Takemura said, looking at the gambling machines with somewhat fond disdain.

"Make you feel all warm and fuzzy?" V asked. 

"I am certainly feeling...something," he said, scooting close to her to pass by a group of rowdy customers. "I would not describe it as 'warm and fuzzy'."

Okada awaited them behind a beaded curtain in the far back of the room. They entered at the ready, Takemura tensing beside V as they stepped inside.

“V,” Wakako spoke from where she sat. She did not stand from the table, her hands and eyes busy with a small scattering of papers across her desk. “I see that you are not discriminatory with the company you keep.

“Ah-” Takemura stood up slightly straighter at V’s side, bowing his head before Wakako. “Please forgive our intrusion.”

Wakako stared at him over her glasses, her lips a tight thin line. She ignored him and looked back to V, awaiting an explanation for the purpose of their presence there.

Takemura spoke before V, and Wakako sent her eyes back to him. “The dashi parade for the Arasaka family. It will pass through your district. Forgive us for our assumptions…but it is clear to me you are a well-connected woman.”

Wakako stared blankly. She smiled to herself for a moment and then let it fall.

“And you are here because you assume that _I_ would have preconceived information about this parade?” she asked, clasping her hands together atop her desk and rubbing her fingers with her thumb.

V raised her brow and shrugged in concede. “Only hypothetically,” she offered.

Takemura looked from V to Okada.

Wakako stared at Takemura out of the left corner of her eyes for a long pause, and then huffed out a short breath and unclasped her hands. She leaned down to peer at the drawers of her desk, running her fingers down the wood and silently considering each one.

“Arasaka throw a parade here,” she said. “Beautiful, expensive floats fly by. Wealthy people from all over Night City travel here and pay high prices to stand in the box offices up above and watch the parade pass through. Very life-changing, yes. Very nice to look at. Most wonderful music I have ever heard.” She opened a drawer for a moment and then closed it again. “And when this parade is gone, the wealthy people leave, and Arasaka go too. Behind them in Japantown they leave kind gift of the refuse of a thousand pounds of confetti and lung-suffocating smoke pollution from the floats. We who live here, this garbage and pollution – that is our celebration.”

She slid a different drawer open near the bottom, sending her fingers searching about inside of it at its contents. V and Takemura watched and waited; rustling paper and the faint clatter of Pachinko chips outside were the room’s only sounds.

Wakako pushed the opened drawer closed again and put her hands back on the table, her right clasped in a fist and face down, her left laying protectively overtop it.

“If,” she said, “hypothetically, there were information of which I was privy…why is it that you, V, are looking for it?” She gave a slight tap of her left-hand fingers where they lay over her right. “Surely if it is sought-after, it must be particularly valuable. Perhaps there are others who might be interested.” She glanced coldly at Takemura again. “All speculation, of course. _Hypothetically.”_

V opened her mouth to speak, but Wakako continued before she had the chance.

“V…if your needing of my help tells me that there is, potentially, the tampering with of this parade in a way which inconveniences the people who dump trash upon my streets…hm. That would certainly be an interesting side benefit.”

She looked to Takemura.

“Your friend here is clearly a man of the law,” she said. “Why is it that he is here helping you dirty your hands, V?”

These were rhetorical banters, playing for time. Anything Wakako Okada needed to know, she had already learned before V and Takemura ever stepped foot into her parlor.

“Wakako, please,” V said. “I’m desperate. I’m willing to pay.”

“Oh?” Wakako said, her lip curving up into a small smile. “If V is willing to pay for it and not steal it, then it must truly be of value. Valuable enough that you would leave a trail through me for this item that could lead back to you if someone were to come poking around.”

Wakako opened her mouth, still in a slight grin, and then closed it with a, _“Hmpf.”_

She removed her left hand from her right fist, turned the fist, and opened it to reveal a data shard within her palm.

“The joy that it would bring me to know that Arasaka suffered an inconvenient blow – this is as money to my hand. But…” She closed her fist. “If I were to help you, V, there would be no consequences falling to me.”

This was not a question. It was Wakako laying her conditions. She would certainly leave no fingerprints of her own involvement in unsavory matters. V was not quite so skilled.

“I will place this…” Wakako held up the shard. “This...entirely innocent, unoffending item at the edge of my desk.” She slid it towards V. “And, if you were to, say, pick it up and walk away…perhaps you found it on your own.”

V reached out slowly to pick up the data shard, silvery and cool to the touch – Wakako turned her gaze to the ceiling, humming in affirmation near silently. V pocketed it.

Wakako looked back to them. “So,” she said. “What was it that you were here for?”

“Nothing,” V said, nodding her head towards the older woman. “There’s nothing. We’ll just go.”

V reached out her right hand to lightly grab at Takemura’s left coat-sleeve and tugged him very gently towards the door. He gave a last lingered look back to Wakako before turning to follow V.

“V,” Wakako said, and the younger woman turned back. “Do try not to get killed. Do not let this swell your pride, but I would notice if you were gone.”

V nodded her head and she and Takemura exited Wakako’s parlor back through the gauntlet of Pachinko machines and onto the street.

They walked a fair ways away, saying nothing and heading out onto the main stretch of road which emerged at the end of the labyrinth of tight inner-city streets. They approached Takemura’s vehicle at his indication and climbed inside. Yet again, she would have to return later for her own abandoned vehicle. Surely Takemura must want her cars to be stolen. 

“Give me the shard, V,” Takemura said, and she handed it to him. 

He slipped the shard into the data port behind his right ear and stared forward at the windshield. It was quiet inside, faint raindrops clattering as whispers upon the van as they sat. V fussed with her hands while she waited for Takemura to read the chip.

“So?” she asked, face aimed to her lap still. “What’s on it?”

“Arasaka security protocol,” he said. “It is a digitized map of where every Arasaka soldier will be positioned during the parade. It tells us where the floats will go through, how many there are, and how many Arasaka teams will be planted in the area. It is a blueprint of the entire parade.”

He pushed on the shard and popped it out.

“Your friend, Wakako…she is clearly a woman with her hands in many pockets.” He held up the shard and looked at it. “To have this at all, V, you are the luckiest unlucky person I have ever had the chance to meet. How you manage to pull these saving graces out of nothing – there is much more to you than meets the eye.”

Takemura leaned towards V and reached into the glove compartment; from it, retrieving a map of Night City. He unfolded it and held it open. His fingers scanned the surface of the crinkled paper.

“The floats for the parade are being held in a heavily-guarded Arasaka industrial zone, here.” He pointed to a spot in the center of Santo Domingo. “We must survey this area to gain a vantage point of the facility. We will go now, yes?”

“What are you planning to do?” V asked, reaching to buckle her seatbelt. A silent confirmation that _yes, she would go._

“If Hanako-sama will not speak to me directly of her own accord," Takemura said, "then I will go to her.”

“Which means?” V asked.

“She will be riding in on the very last float of the parade. When it passes beneath the footbridge here…” He pointed to a spot in the center of Japantown. “I will jump.”

“You’ll jump,” V said. “Onto the float. Gotcha. Right. Well…okay.”

Takemura pressed the map onto his lap and gave her a look. “You agree so easily?”

“I don’t have a better idea," V said. "Sounds pretty doable to me.”

“I think that you should be more discriminatory of the things you go along with, V. Look at where you are now, yes? A failed heist on Konpeki Plaza has gotten you very far indeed.”

He chuckled lightly and refolded the map, placing it on V's lap.

“If I hadn’t been there, though, nobody would have seen what happened to Saburo Arasaka,” V said, placing her hands over the map. “I wouldn’t be here to help prove your innocence.”

Takemura stunted. “Oh,” he said. “Well, that, I…hm.”

V pushed her shoulder into him where he was still sitting slightly close, unaware of their proximity to one another.

He leaned away at this and buckled his own seatbelt, and then sat stiffly, grabbing ahold of the steering wheel.

“Thank me later,” V said, and he nodded.

Takemura pulled away from where he had parked and headed onto the street. He turned on the windshield wipers and they squeaked to life across the glass.

* * * * * 

At a construction site across from Arasaka Industrial Park, Takemura parked within the grounds of the fenced-off perimeter, stopping the van beside a few large construction crates on one side, and some workers’ vehicles on the other. He shut off the engine and removed the keys from the ignition.

“Come, V,” he said, exiting the van and shutting the door behind him. He opened the back door briefly and removed a leather messenger bag from the seat behind the drivers’, and then closed that door too.

V unbuckled herself and followed suit, closing her own door behind her. The van beeped as Takemura locked it and pocketed the keys.

“Loud,” he said, mostly to himself.

V caught up to him as he headed swiftly away from her and towards a fence beside a pile of pallets. Rain was sprinkling lightly. A chilled rain. There was wind in the air and it rustled past V’s ears.

“Follow,” Takemura said, assessing the area with squinted, cautious eyes. “We must gain altitude.”

The two of them hopped the fence and trailed over to a set of metal stairs which inclined for about two stories, then proceeded into a service elevator located within the construction area. While inside, the two of them kept a safe distance from one another. Comfortable, but separate, nonetheless.

They arrived on the roof, and, approaching the edge, were able to overlook the entirety of the Arasaka Industrial Park across the street.

Takemura removed a set of binoculars from the leather messenger bag he had taken from the van. He held them to his eyes and looked out over the railing. V leaned against it beside him and thought of the rain.

“So…” V said, running her fingers along the metal of the rail, slick with water. “What’s the plan?”

“We will survey the facility through the night to gain perspective on the routines of each worker below, each truck which enters, each drone which flies overhead.” He lowered the binoculars and looked to her for a moment and then raised them again and returned to his surveillance. “We cannot afford to be careless, V. We must take time to understand how best to approach the situation. Our lives are at stake. And I do not wish to test fate’s trembling hand.”

V nodded and readjusted where she was leaning to ensure she did not brush too closely to her traveling companion. “If we stay up all night,” she said, “won’t we be too exhausted to fight tomorrow?”

Takemura smirked slightly, and V was sure she would have missed it, had she not already been watching him out of the corner of her eyes.

“We will set upon the facility in the early morning hours,” he said. “It is best to operate when guards are likely to be less, perhaps during a rotation of shifts.”

“Will I be able to nap first?” V said jokingly with a goofy smile.

“Surely you do not wish to sleep on the concrete of the roof." Takemura scoffed. "You _are_ better than this, no?”

V frowned slightly, taken aback. “What if I’m not?” she asked curiously, wanting to know where he would take this.

“I have slept in the gutter, V,” he said stoically. “Do not think I judge you. Do not misconstrue me for encouraging you to have standards. I assumed this would be a welcome suggestion. Clearly I was not correct.”

V fidgeted beside him. “I don’t know, I bet concrete could be all _warm and snuggly_ when I’ve already lain out one night in the desert just begging to look down and find my leg still attached. Think it might be better than that. So, I think it might be you who’s judging me.”

“Do not patronize me, V. You are not a child.”

She sunk in on herself. It was a low-blow to mention what had happened to her in the Badlands. He was right. She was being childish. 

“I grew up in an insignificant district in Japan," Takemura said. "Chiba-11. I call it insignificant because it is not worthy of remembering. It is not worthy of even our speaking of its existence now. This place is one which should be removed from all maps. Removed from my country. Chiba-11 was a hell on earth, as they say.”

“How did you become Saburo Arasaka’s bodyguard if you were born in such a terrible place?”

“I became who I did because in Japan as I understand it, we have the ability to become more than we are if we excel to the best of our abilities. In Night City, you are born stuck. Nobody here has initiative to fulfill their purpose.”

V shook her head solemnly. “It takes more than initiative to get out of a bad situation," she said.

“Arasaka soldiers came to my village one day, when I was only a boy." Takemura was still surveying the buildings across the street. "This was…2039. I was ten. The soldiers were looking for recruits, as was usual of them. They could sense potential in us by merely a glance. And I was chosen.”

“You were conscripted,” V said, an alternative connotation to the word he had used. “Ten. That’s very young.”

“Better to begin before you have decided who to be in life, yes?" he said. "At ten, I was barely a person. A poor boy from a town where you are murdered by bands of thieves over ten dollars. I would say it was like Night City, but it was a strictly rural community. We did not have even running water many times.”

"I-I'm sorry." V swallowed. "I didn't realize."

“I put everything that I was into Arasaka." Takemura lowered the binoculars at last, palming over them and looking down to the streets far below. "If a soldier is what I would be, then I would be the best soldier Japan had ever seen.” He chuckled lightly. “My youthful confidence had not yet shed itself at this time.”

"Did you enjoy it?" V asked softly.

“I made my way into the top one-percent of the top one-percent; Arasaka’s special forces division." He smiled lightly. "This is where Saburo-sama entered into my life. He made a visit to the camp where I was stationed, and we lined along the center, as was routine when Saburo-sama made his rounds. He tested each of our wills to look him in the eye, and found the personal bodyguard he was searching for in me. _Me_. I have never known humbleness like I did that day.”

He leaned away from the railing and sat upon a pile of cinderblocks behind him. He still maintained half a mind trained on the facility below, his eyes cast secretly towards it.

“I was nothing. I was worthless," he said. "Arasaka Saburo gave my life meaning.”

"And now?" V asked.

“Now, he is gone…and I do not know what will come next for me.”

“Now you find a new purpose,” V said softly, taking a seat beside him. “I could help you pick one.”

“You are kind, V," he said, patting his hand against her own and then retreating. "But I do not think you quite understand.”

“And I don’t think you quite understand me," she said. “Goodness in people…it’s not found in incredible gestures of charity. It’s found in the little things that we don’t think about. The things that we take for granted. The way an old man plants a garden of his wife’s favorite flowers after she’s lost her sight, so she can remember what it felt like to experience her favorite thing. It’s found in...in the coffee you drink in the morning, the way it feels to hold that warm mug in your hands. Hm. Found in the way it sounds to wake up on the day of a trip and hear your family moving around the house, excited for what’s to come."

She looked to him directly. "Goodness is inside of everyone," she said. "It’s inside of the everyday person. Not Saburo Arasaka.”

Takemura's lips flattened with disapproval.

“V," he said, "do not walk this line.”

“Saburo Arasaka saved your life," she said. "But if it was possible for him to save one, why didn’t he save them all?”

Takemura shook his head and turned his body from her slightly. “Let us talk of this no further.”

They sat in silence for a while, and V was sure that this would be the longest stakeout of her life. She paced around the roof, going to and from various points of viewing access all while trying to avoid stepping on Takemura's toes and bothering him while he was working. Her presence at his side was surely one of inconvenience, as he was a supremely skilled man who clearly did not actually need her assistance to pull off whatever it was that he was planning. 

Takemura broke their silence once dark had finally fallen, hours later. 

“You were born in 2054, yes?”

V walked to where he was standing in the same spot as before, resting her arms on the railing once again at his side. "Yep," she said.

“2054," he repeated. "Yes. 2054 is when I have this tattoo done. I was twenty-five.” He unrolled his left sleeve to show off a painted black and white viper snaking around his forearm and wrist. "All of my tattoos were given through traditional tebori style; by a hand-wielding craftsman within Arasaka. All of us received our tattoos from this craftsman.”

Takemura took V’s hand lightly and placed it over the tattoo, drawing her fingertips along the length of the snake, flowing the path of the movement smoothly over his skin.

“Tebori is very old style of tattooing,” he said, still holding her hand over his wrist. “It is clean, precise – modern machine tattooing cannot ever wish to replicate the intimate art of tebori.”

He released her hand and she pulled away, though he remained with his sleeve undone. 

“We at Arasaka are taken into a meditative, sensory-deprivation room at Saburo-sama’s home, in Tokyo. We shed all of our worldly emotions and desires at the door, and enter as men in search of a spiritual experience. There, we lay, bare-chested, before the artist. And he chooses what to paint on us.”

V looked away, out to the distance where Night City grew across the horizon.

“Spooky action at a distance,” she said.

“What?” he asked. “Spooky…action… _what?”_

“Spooky action at a distance,” V repeated.

“Two things,” she held up her pointer fingers, “that happen in two different places at the exact same time and have absolutely no effect on one another, but which are beautiful and mysterious for there being no connection between them.”

She indicated to her left-hand pointer finger. “In Tokyo, you were having this tattoo done.”

She wiggled her right-hand pointer finger. “And at the same time, here, in Night City, I was being born. We wouldn’t meet for twenty-three years, and yet, we were existing on the planet at the same time for the very first time ever at that exact moment. Spooky action...” She put her fingers beside one another. “...at a distance.”

Takemura hesitated. “If you are referring to Einstein’s theory of molecular activity…I do not think that is what he meant.”

She dropped her fingers. “But you get it, right?” she asked.

Takemura chuckled lightly. "Surely enough," he said. 

V tapped her hands along the railing, a hollow and metallic noise resounding softly from this. 

“So," she said, turning and leaning her back against the rail. Takemura sat on the cinderblock pile again. "What was it like being a bodyguard?”

“It was many long nights of standing very still while Saburo-sama penned away at paperwork in his office.”

V crossed to sit beside him. “No fun at all?”

“Fun was simply not a matter in my mind after I had gone through my entire youth training day and night to become an unbeatable machine of a man. Even in the service of Saburo-sama, I still trained yet. There were many rules to follow. I did not break them. So…fun…that is a difficult question.”

“Did you have to take... _vows?_ " she asked. "Anything like that? Seems like something they'd make you do.

Takemura shuffled beside her. “In all of my time with Arasaka, activities of a...sexual nature were not a… _luxury_ …afforded to me. There were women of a certain, erm, disposition, who frequented the male company of Arasaka. But I…I never indulged in those activities.”

“What about now?” she asked quietly.

“Now?” he asked. “How do you mean, ‘now’?”

“I mean, now that nothing is stopping you. You could finally find someone that you like! Or love. Or something. I could help you! What kind of people do you like? O-or, if you already have someone in your life, who, uh, who is it?"

“V, I do not know if I am comfortable discussing this with you. Surely you have embarrassed me enough already.”

“Oh!” V laughed awkwardly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I was only curious. I’ve…never known someone like you.” These words cut through them as a double-edged sword, but she blocked the blow by adding quickly, “I-I just mean, someone of your position. I’ve never known someone so involved in, well, something like Arasaka. I’m rambling. Sorry. I hope you…I hope you know what I mean. Sorry. I was just curious about what your life was like there.”

She swallowed harshly.

“I was not without my personal freedoms, V, if this is your meaning.” He paused and looked across the parking lot down from them to the horizon where the sunset sky met the earth. V looked, too. She wanted to see what he saw. “Personal freedoms, yes. Though I must admit that my life was one of servitude, regardless. I owed Saburo-sama my life…I could not afford to jeopardize my newfound livelihood with…unnecessary pleasures.”

“And now?”

“I...suppose I am free to be as unnecessary as I desire.” He smiled faintly. “Free. That is a strange idea. I do not think I yet know its meaning.”

V nodded. She looked to her shoes. “I think free means…to be responsible about your un-necessities. To be irrational, but…to choose it, and…nurture its silliness. Do you think you could ever be that, Goro? Silly?”

He smiled. “You jest, but, as before, I truly cannot say that ‘irrational’ fun was ever a part of my life, not since I was chosen by Saburo-sama. And so, I am…unsure, that I know how to be this. ‘Silly’.”

They both nodded contentedly and V tapped her shoe lightly against Takemura's. An awkward silence fell over them.

“W-what about you, V?”

“Hm?”

“You asked me if there was someone in my life. Is there…someone in yours?”

“Oh!" she said. "Um, no. Uh. I’ve never been close to anyone, in that way. But I guess time’s run out for that. It’s okay, though. Next life, maybe.”

“Ah." Takemura looked away. "I see. Well, I, uh…hm.” He cleared his throat.

“Sorry," V said. "I didn’t mean for that to sound so…so _hopeless_. I don’t mean to be.”

“V, are you alright?”

She put her face in her hands and rubbed her tiring eyes.

“I’m sorry," she said.

He placed a hand lightly onto her back. “You apologize far too much.”

“I’m just terrified, honestly," she said. "I’m so scared that I’ll go to sleep and I won’t wake up the next day. I’m afraid of there being nothing. Of forgetting what it feels like to be alive. I don’t want to lose my life so soon. It may be hard sometimes, but I don’t really want to go. No...never." She held her face in her hands heavily. "Oh…god. I’m so scared.”

She looked back up at him. “There are so many things I haven’t done. So many places I want to go. I’m not done here, yet. I’m afraid of going. Of being dead…gone, or whatever happens. I’m terrified.”

“In Japan,” Takemura said, rubbing his thumb slowly on her shoulderblade. “Life…it goes on, after a death. You are never really gone away. You are just…somewhere new. Death is a part of life, a piece of it. A person can never truly leave. Not if their heart is not ready to go.”

“Well, my heart is definitely holding on pretty tightly.”

Johnny shoved V out of the way of Takemura's hand on her shoulder and she fell off of their makeshift seating onto the roof.

“V?” Takemura stood at the defense quickly. _“Goodness. What happened?”_

She stood quickly, brushed herself off, and sat back where she had been, waving her hand off dismissively at Takemura. He stood beside her at the ready to help, but she declined his aid. Her left wrist hurt where she had landed on it to break her strange sudden tumble, but she pretended it didn't.

“Nothing happened,” she said with a slight smile. “I’m alright.”

He looked at her with bewildered concern. “Then why did you fall off of there?”

“I didn’t,” she said, shaking her head. “Just...nevermind.”

“You looked like you pushed yourself.”

“Oops?”

“V," he said seriously, "you must be honest with me.”

V looked at him and bit the inside of her cheeks. She looked away and sighed.

“It was Johnny," she said. "He…pushed against me...and I fell.”

Johnny seethed in her head. _‘Traitorous bitch.’_

 _“V,”_ Takemura said concernedly, reaching to place his hand over hers.

“I’m fighting to stay in control every second," she said quietly. "Sometimes I can’t even remember my own…my own name.”

“Then why will you not allow me to call it to you, V?”

She shook her head. “That girl should stay in the past. V has ruined a lot of things. But, who I was before hasn’t been destroyed. Not entirely. I want her to be safe inside me.”

“But she _is_ you, V.”

“Maybe.”

“Who we are has a way of catching up to us always, in the end. We would do best not to pretend these mistakes do not exist.”

He held her hand still.

“I knew you’d…" She sighed. "...say something like that."

“V," he said softly. She didn't reply.

_“Valérie.”_

“Goro." She pulled her hand away. " _Don’t.”_

“You," he said, "are the firstborn daughter of Hóng Li Jie, a native of Shanghai, China, and Flora Siallou – a daughter of immigrants from the island of Corsica; a province of France.”

V blanched. Her blood ran cold and she wanted to run away.

“The name listed in every register of this city that you are printed on tells me that your name is Valérie Siallou." He looked very harshly at her, the most serious she had ever seen him be. "But this is not true. Because your birth certificate tells me that your name is – ”

“Lilingbai," she said. "Hóng Lilingbai.”

She stood from the cinderblocks and held her arms around herself. She paced.

“Liling is a city in China known for its production of porcelain," she said. "Bai is the color white in Mandarin. Porcelain white. Ironic that my life would have turned out the way it has.”

She sat back down. Everything was running fast. Nothing could be still.

“My family name is Hóng. My given name from my father is Lilingbai and my given name from my mother is Valérie. But please…” She looked out to the city again. “Forget you know this about me. Who I was before doesn’t matter. Just call me V.”

Takemura placed his hand on her knee and moved closer. Her body prickled at the idea.

“My father..." she said, "was an Imagineer at Shanghai Disneyland from the late 2030s to 2045.”

Takemura laughed lightly, and she looked at him with grave upset.

“This is funny to you," she said sadly.

“Not funny,” he said. “It is…a childlike story which I did not expect.”

“In 2045, he transferred to the Anaheim, California Disneyland for better opportunities, but when it closed in 2050, he was left unemployed in a strange country that he didn’t understand and that didn’t understand him." She touched his hand upon her knee with her own. The coolness of the metallic lines of his skin was grounding. "He met my mom somewhere around that time, but I don’t know much about what her life was like before she moved here from Corsica. I never had the chance to ask and she was regretful to share very much. I suspect that it must not have been good. Of what I do know, it was a terrible life.”

His hand that was not upon her leg, Takemura placed onto her back, holding her there in a kind of comfort that was just close enough to be familiar, and yet distant enough to be civil.

“My mom came from one of the poorest places in France," V said. "She had little to no education outside of what her parents could teach her at home. They made all of their own clothes, their own food, built their own house. But they had to leave when war hit the island around 2030 and they emigrated to California. My mom was sequestered with other foreigners in the slums of Anaheim – and she took a very long time to learn English. Even when she died, she still struggled to get through a simple English book. She was terrified for the rest of her life of the war she’d left behind at home. And what that war didn’t take from her, Night City did. This place taught her to be ashamed of where she came from, because to be poor was to be worthless.”

She ran her fingers along Takemura's where his hand sat, and he did not object.

“My mother was so smart in her own language," she said. "But this city couldn’t see that. My parents moved to Night City not because it was a good place to live, but because it was a _cheap_ place to live. And they had nowhere else to go." She paused. "And then they had me.”

She looked back to the horizon. It seemed like a different place than the safety of the world they had made here tonight.

“We lived in Little China for most of my childhood," she said. "My dad’s sister lived with us because she’d moved over with him from Shanghai. My dad opened an electronics repair shop below the house – the place that’s now Yu Shen’s restaurant.”

"How did this shop fare?" Takemura asked.

“Badly," she said. "Neither I or my mom ever got to see my dad at the height of his career, back home. We only ever got to see him in the sorry state that being trapped in this city forced on him.”

She closed her eyes. She did not want to cry in front of him. That would be a state of vulnerability she could not lay in the palms of his hands. If he was winding her up around his finger, surely she was allowing it to happen.

“My parents first bonded over their shared love of French," she said. "It was my mom’s first language, and my dad had studied it in school back in Shanghai. They learned how best to love one another through this language that connected them; two strangers finding each other in this confusing place that was working so hard against them. And I regret having never learned it.”

“There is always time yet," Takemura said kindly.

“No,” she said. “I mean…I regret not having learned it from them before they passed away. Learn what those words meant to them before I lost the chance to ask, because after my mom died, my dad passed away within a matter of, I think, two years.”

“Yes." Takemura nodded. "It is regretful to lose one parent. But it is a tragedy to lose both.”

“There was this art school that I really wanted to go to," V said, "but it was too expensive. My dad, he…he wanted me to have everything. And I felt so horrible that he felt like that. That he thought I was ashamed of him for not having enough money. So he opened a little electronics stand in Kabuki, and every day, he’d work for hours at our store at home, and then all night at the stand in Kabuki.”

She turned Takemura's hand over on her knee and thumbed over his palm.

“One night, two drivers from Arasaka, or Militech, or who even cares…" She swallowed. "...they came by in a truck…and they hit him. They were drunk. And he was in the way. The only consolation I have is that I hope he died instantly. I hope he didn’t suffer.”

"I'm sorry, V."

“In China," she said, "my father was a respected, college-educated engineer. In the U.S., he was a poverty-stricken, unemployed, frail old man. This is why I refuse to let this city become me. Because my father deserved more than to be murdered. How can he rest in peace if he died on a street corner? Still, somehow, I think it would’ve sat better with me if my father had been killed by someone who specifically wanted to kill him, because that would have meant he was a threat, would have meant he carried weight in this city. But he didn’t. He was hit by careless, immoral workers not watching where they were going. My father died because nobody was _paying attention.”_

“When you spoke of your mother," Takemura said, "your tone was much different. The death of your father – it makes you feel different?”

“Because I don’t blame myself for my mom’s death.”

“But you do for your father’s?”

“If I hadn’t wanted to go to that art school…he wouldn’t have had to set up that stand on the street, to earn extra money. He wouldn’t have been there for anyone to hit him. We’d already lost so much when Arasaka sued us for my mom’s illness. And I felt like I took the rest away.”

"V, that is not true. It was not your fault."

“I’m the daughter of two immigrants who were destroyed by false promises of happiness in this…in this stupid _fucking_ country. I carry their unfulfilled legacies on my back every day. I _have_ to be better. Have to be better because they didn’t get to.”

She pulled away from him and he let his hands fall to his lap. 

“Someday," she said. "Someday, I want to go to Shanghai, and I’ll go to Disneyland. And I’ll finally get to know what it felt like for my dad before I was ever born. I’ll know what he felt like the very last time he was ever happy. And I’ll pretend that it’s possible to live in a different world.”

“Well I hope you have the chance," Takemura said. "Though I must say...there is also a Disneyland in Tokyo. Very nice.”

V laughed quietly. She shook her head and looked at him.

“Is that a heavy-handed invitation?” she asked.

“I already told you that it is promised you shall visit me in Japan.”

She smiled and huffed out, secretly reaching her sleeve to her face to check for tears and hoping Takemura wouldn't notice.

“V, look.”

She looked in the direction of where Takemura was holding up his hand to point across from them at a small Sphinx cat sitting on the banister at the corner of the building, licking the wetness of the railing.

 _“Oh_ …" she said. “It’s a kitty.”

“Kitty," Takemura repeated. "Yes. I like this word. Kitty.”

He stood and approached the cat as close as he could, crouching to look at it.

“In Japanese folklore, a cat seen in a strange fixing as this, bakeneko is what we call it. These cats of the yōkai, they bring with them many bizarre things. They can represent a change, but usually an odd one. They can bring to us warning of an inexplicable event awaiting us. Bakeneko warn us of moments of the future which perhaps have not even been set in motion yet. Maybe this is your ‘spooky action at a distance’.”

V smiled widely. She crossed to where he was and crouched beside him, leaning against him with her shoulder. “I knew I was onto something.”

“Come now, V," he said, standing again and reaching his hand out to her, "you should rest for a while. I will wake you when it is time for us to advance.” He pulled her up.

“Are you sure?” she asked, and he nodded with a warm smile.

“I was the bodyguard of the most powerful man in all of Japan. Surely I can protect one young woman while she sleeps.”

"Surely?" V repeated. "Very confident of you."

"If it is confidence to trust that you will come to no harm with me, then yes, very confident."

Takemura sat upon the cinderblocks again and V joined him. Though there were no exact words spoken, somehow the invitation to lay her head upon his lap was made clear between the two of them. She faced outwards towards the city, her own hands crading her head where she lay it against his thighs, and he placed a comforting hand over her hair. 

"Everything will be okay," she said quietly. 

Takemura smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t actually remember what Wakako Okada helped them with, so I improvised as well as I could remember. Hopefully it was close enough haha. Canon divergent anyway, so it’s fine.


	6. Jaded Is My Father, Childlike Is My Answer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took the past few days to finally meet with Hanako at Embers and play through all of the endings, and I never realized that Takemura didn't know that the engram in V's head was Johnny. I genuinely thought he knew and that feels like a weird oversight to hide from him. It never occurred to me that the conversation never came up even though he knew V had the Relic. So let's just pretend that's not true lol, since I've been writing this with the intention that he knew.

C H A P T E R S I X

_Jaded Is My Father, Childlike Is My Answer_

Things may not always go according to plan – but this thing did.

Though V’s adventures as a freelance mercenary were plentiful, somehow this heist of the dashi floats within the Arasaka Industrial Park felt all the more worthwhile than perhaps anything else she had done in a long while. She had passed through the facility as a ghost, slipping quietly within to execute Takemura's decided plan of installing malware upon the computers of Hanako Arasaka's float, to aid them in breaching security during the parade the following night.

It felt good to have someone at her side. The last time she had worked so closely with another person… _well…_

This upcoming dashi parade was, perhaps, to be her redemption. To prove to herself that she truly could return to the field as a mercenary at large and not destroy every precious little thing she had built up in her life in a matter of mere minutes.

Though, one crucial element could not be understated.

Takemura was a worthy partner.

No. More than that.

Takemura was a _good man._

Never in so many years of being condemned to this city had V met someone who would lay true their intentions and not waver in the slightest. Though she may not have agreed with what his exact hopes were in working with Arasaka, she could not deny that the resilience to his own moral compass was somehow frustratingly admirable.

V wondered if, under other circumstances, she and Takemura could ever have crossed paths.

This could not be further from reality, she knew, but…wishful thinking was a frivolous pastime she allowed herself to indulge in perhaps too much these days. It should have been obvious to her that she and Takemura had been raised from two dramatically incongruent backgrounds, and that their meeting was only precipitated by both of their lives being effectively destroyed.

And yet, she still wondered if this strange man from a different world could ever have seen her and thought of her as an acquaintance – nay, a _friend_ \- had it not been of the upmost urgency and obligation to their circumstances.

If they had met as two unknowns on the street, with no crosshairs fixed upon their hearts, would he have passed her by?

Settled back in the black van which Takemura had driven them to the construction site in, the two buckled up, and V wondered if he felt the same kind of post-heist adrenaline that she did. Her body was buzzing with wonderous energy and, having not slept properly that night, a second wave of awake-ness had settled in and everything felt like a waking dream. It was the feeling of trembling butterflies in her tummy, but, instead, all around her; across her skin, inside her head, within her very heart.

Four AM was upon them.

Seated inside, the heat turned on and beginning to warm their chilled bodies, V held her fingers in front of the vents.

Takemura watched her, and mimicked the action. He asked politely, “V, would you like a ride home?”

If he was tired, V could not tell. Takemura was not a man to easily betray his true feelings about any given situation.

“Yes,” she said, pulling her knees up into the seat and wrapping her arms around them. “Yes, please. That would be really nice.”

“Certainly,” he said, smiling ever so slightly and then giving the van’s pedals some gas, pulling away from their existing spot in the construction zone’s parking lot and entering the empty Night City streets of the early morning.

“Actually,” V said, looking out the window, “could you drop me off where we left from? I need to get my car off the street so it isn’t towed.” She considered this for a moment, rain slowly trickling down the glass. She watched two raindrops fall beside one another and imagined them having a race. “Well, if it hasn’t been stolen already.”

Takemura chuckled lightly and said, “That is a good idea, I think. Certainly, your little red toy car is at great risk of thievery.”

“Hey, I love my car,” V said with a sleepy smile. “She’s a gorgeous gal. And I’m sure everybody would love to have her.”

“If these ‘everybody’ are anything like you, V, then I am certain they would.”

“Anything like me?” she asked. “In what way?”

“Your car,” he said, one hand on the steering wheel and the other being used to gesture with. “It is, as one might say, very cute.”

V perked up at this. “Meaning?”

Takemura paused in thought, and then settled on, “Meaning it is a cute car.”

V pressed. “And?” 

“What?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Oh. I dunno. Thought you were taking that somewhere.” She resettled into her seat and turned back to look through the window.

“You performed well tonight, V,” Takemura said. “I commend you for your tact and skill…though, you could always improve in your professionalism.”

“My amateurishness makes me special, Goro. It’s my style. You think I’m a good merc because I do everything perfectly? No way.” She waved her hand. “They just hire me because I’m so darn adorable.”

“Well,” he said, small smirk on his face, “you certainly are not lacking in personality.”

V placed her hand over her heart. “That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, Goro. Thank you.”

“As I said before, V; you are a ridiculous woman.”

“Ridiculous again?” she asked. “Did I get downgraded from remarkable?”

“You are both at the same time.”

“Alright." She smiled. "I can work with that.”

* * * * *

When they arrived back at the Cherry Blossom Market, Takemura parked a block away from her car, on the main street leading into Japantown, and V climbed out of the vehicle.

When she had closed the passenger’s side door behind her, Takemura rolled down the window and V turned around, leaning into the now opened space.

“I will contact you tomorrow, V,” Takemura said, and V smiled. She looked up at the summer sky and the way that sunrise was already catching its bearings.

“I think it might already be tomorrow,” she said.

“Then I will contact you this afternoon,” he said. “Better?”

She patted the window frame and took a step back.

“See you then,” she said, and gave him a sweet salute.

As soon as she was safely on the sidewalk, Takemura rolled up the window and drove off towards the south of Japantown.

When she crossed through the alleyways back to where she had left her car, she found that it was not stolen. But somehow this would have been a preferable alternative.

Her little red Makigai had been completely stripped clean. Hubcaps, seats, tires, doors, radio – all gone. All that remained was the frame of the vehicle and the paint job. And the paint job only remained because it wasn’t possible to steal a color.

V’s hands flew to her hair and she stood there on the street, absolutely flabbergasted. Johnny appeared at her side, snickering and clicking his tongue.

 _‘Well would you look at that…’_ he said.

 _"Son of a_ …mother-loving… _ergh_ …” V circled the car to assess the damages. “This is just fantastic. Just great. Why did they even bother leaving the frame? No scratches at all, they unscrewed everything properly; I guess I’m almost impressed.” She sighed and ran her hand along the roof. “That was my favorite car.”

 _'Well, your favorite car is gone now.’_ Johnny clapped a somewhat reluctantly comforting hand on her back and patted her roughly. _‘So, it doesn’t matter anymore. How we gettin’ home, V?’_

She kissed her hand and pressed it to the roof of the car and then pulled her phone from her pocket, scrolling through her contacts quickly, blocking raindrops from falling on the screen with her other hand. “I’ll call Delamain,” she said.

Johnny laughed. _‘This is definitely the kind of shit that would happen to you, V.’_

“Well, I’m glad you’re entertained.”

_‘Best thing I’ve seen in weeks.’_

V waited for her ride to arrive by sitting on the street curb, Johnny sitting at her side even though he didn't have to. Delamain pulled up to the two of them about fifteen minutes later.

“Hello, Miss V!” Delamain exclaimed as she climbed into the backseat. Johnny shoved in beside her, crowding her slightly with the length of his legs trying to fit in the space behind the front seats. “We are having a pleasant morning today at a comfortable 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Would you like the temperature in Celsius?”

V leaned over Johnny and pulled the door shut, and then sunk down into the seat, buckling herself in. “Fahrenheit is fine, Delamain. Thank you. Could you drive me to my apartment?”

“Certainly, Miss V! We will arrive in…sixteen minutes and fifty-four seconds. However, this is only if traffic proves to be appropriately suitable for a clear and smooth ride to your destination. I will update your approximate arrival time accordingly.”

“You’re the best, Del.”

V, settled and slumped, opened her right eye to look to Johnny where he sat at her side.

“You gonna buckle up?” she asked.

He tapped his temple. _‘I’m not actually here, remember?’_

“It would make me feel better,” V said. "Do it for me?"

Johnny, not breaking eye-contact with her and with brow raised, dramatically reached behind him, pulled the seatbelt around his waist, and clicked it into the slot. _‘Happy?’_ he asked.

“Yep,” she said, and then squashed herself back into a pile of goo in her own spot.

“Would you like me to turn on the radio, Miss V?” Delamain asked, but V shook her head, eyes closing sleepily.

“That’s alright, Del,” she said. “I like the quiet.”

“Certainly, Miss V. Quietness is good. I also like the quiet.”

The lull of the road beneath Delamain’s tires created a soft lulling effect as they drove, and she didn’t realize that she had momentarily drifted off until a sound burst from somewhere at her legs.

_“Bum-bum-be-dum-bum-bum-be-dum-bum!”_

V opened her eyes suddenly and looked to her lap.

Skippy, placed within the gun-holster strapped to her thigh, was singing loudly and dancing. She grabbed him from where he was snugly secured to her and turned him within her hands to reveal the holographic bullet projection which was now giving her a wide and toothy smile.

“Skippy?” she asked. “What’s up, lil’ guy?”

“V did not want to listen to music even though V loves music! I thought that this required some cheering up. Bum-bum-be-dum-bum-bum-be-dum-bum!”

“Just feeling tired is all, Skippy. Nothing to worry about.” She gave him a pretend kiss against his holograph and he blushed dramatically. “Thank you for thinking of me, Skippy.”

He spun around and threw his hands in the air. “V is the nicest human Skippy has ever met! I will thank you with more music. Bum-bum-be-dum-bum-bum-be-dum-bum!” He danced around again. “Oh, V? When we arrive at your apartment, can you put me on the cushy pillow again? The pink one on your couch? I liked this pillow.”

“Of course, Skippy.”

“And will you give me a goodnight kiss?”

“If that’s what you want, then, sure.”

“Oh, V is so lovely! Bum-bum-be-dum-bum-bum-be-dum-bum!”

 _‘Where did you find that thing anyway?’_ Johnny asked, his foot up on the console between the two front seats as he silently plucked away at an invisible guitar.

Skippy spun around and put on his angry eyes and a frown and gave Johnny an enraged look. “I beg your pardon! I am not a thing!” he exclaimed. “V, do not allow this terrible man to remain in the car any longer! I simply cannot stand him!”

“Oh...” V thumbed over the gun. “Did Johnny say something mean? He does that a lot, Skippy. Don’t pay any attention to him.”

 _‘I’m on a ship of crazy people,’_ Johnny said to himself, shaking his head and returning to pluck away at the air.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” V asked him, sliding Skippy back into the holster on her thigh.

Johnny didn’t look to her. _‘Huh?’_ he asked. _‘Oh…nothing.’_

“What were you humming just then?”

 _'Not anything,’_ he said. _‘Just an old song.’_

“It sounded good,” she offered. “Maybe you could sing it for me sometime.”

Johnny nodded, looking out the window. If Mister Talks-A-Lot was at a lack for words, then V certainly knew there must be something complicated going through his mind. She tried to think within her own head to pry into his, but their connection wasn’t strong enough for that. For all the ways they were the same physically, their thoughts and emotions were still largely separate. Or, at the least, it was a one-sided symbiotic relationship. Johnny somehow seemed to know all, yet she could not siphon off of him in quite the same way.

This was a strange experience to reconcile with. To physically experience another person at the same time as herself, and yet not know what he was feeling. To be so finely attuned to his body, but not his mind, and yet to still receive dreams of his memories all the while.

When they arrived back to Megabuilding H10 and entered V’s apartment, Johnny flopped down on the couch and put his hands behind his head.

V slipped off her shoes by the door and walked to put her now defunct car keys into their usual location beside her computer.

Her phone buzzed and she reached to check it.

**______**

**From: Takemura** **😱**

 _You have arrived home safely?_ [4:54 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Yes. Just got in._ [4:55 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Good to hear. Thank you for accompanying me today. I would not have been as successful without your aid._ [4:57 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _I don’t know if that’s true, but, thank you anyway_. [4:58 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _You underestimate your abilities greatly, V. You are more capable than you realize. True strength is often subtle._ [5:02 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Thank you. It means a lot._ [5:03 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _You are welcome._ [5:06 AM]

______

_‘V, you need to dump this guy and go and get Rogue’s help.’_

He was tossing a baseball into the air and catching it where he lay, his feet up to the side on the back of the couch.

“Well,” V said, crossing over to Johnny and placing Skippy carefully on the pink pillow he had asked for and tucking him in with a little blanket. “Do you have 15,000 eddies sitting around that I can use to pay her with?”

Johnny shrugged. _‘Rob a bank.’_

“Oh,” V said, standing back up from giving Skippy a goodnight kiss. “Is that all?”

_‘Not like jumping on the fucking Arasaka float is much smarter.’_

V sat down beside where she had put Skippy.

“The way it stands,” she said, “Takemura is the only person who will work with me. Rogue won’t even acknowledge I exist unless I give her money, Evelyn Parker’s completely dropped off the face of the earth, and Judy barely seems to care that I exist. Takemura saved me from that junk pile. Not Rogue. Not Evelyn Parker. Not Judy. I owe him my help.”

He stopped tossing the baseball and it disappeared. _‘Well,’_ he said, _‘maybe if you scratch some backs, they’ll fucking scratch yours. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. You have options; fucking investigate them.’_ He sat up and leaned his forearms atop his knees. _‘And you seem to forget that it was **my** engram that kept you from biting the bullet.’_

“I just ruined my life doing a favor for someone who didn’t have my best interests in mind,” V said. “I could have…I could have told Jackie that Dexter DeShawn wasn’t trustworthy, but I didn’t, because I was gullible and I believed that he had our backs.”

_'So make fucking better decisions from now on, then, V.'_

“Johnny, I don’t have enough life left to be indecisive and string a bunch of people along until they inevitably turn on me. So, right now, I’ve decided that we’re helping Takemura. And after that, we’ll choose what to do next.”

She stood up and crossed to her bed, picking up her pajamas where she’d last left them. Johnny followed her, but she moved out of the way of where he blocked her way to the bathroom.

 _‘This is all gonna go ass-up right into an early grave for you, V,’_ he said, trailing after her towards the bathroom. _‘This is not smart. I’d rather endure a hundred hours of cock-and-ball torture from a guy pulling a truck with a rope tied to my junk than go through with this parade of pain.’_

“Well, you illustrated that with such perfect detail, you surely must’ve done it before.”

She closed the door to the bathroom to block him from following her inside.

Her night – well, her _morning_ – proceeded with little interception from Johnny again, aside from him lingering around on her couch and flipping through her magazines. He always seemed to make his presence known when he was seen, not by his words or actions, but by the sheer enormity of his aura. Johnny was never someone she could forget was in the room with her.

Before she lay down to bed at last, her phone chimed.

______

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Forgive me if I am keeping you awake, V, but I must admit that I have a question._ [5:38 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _You’re not keeping me up! What do you need?_ [5:40 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _I understand I have said that I would contact you tomorrow afternoon, but would you be able to meet any earlier than this?_ [5:43 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Absolutely!_ [5:43 AM]

 _Is there a reason you want to meet early or did you just miss me_ 😉? [5:44 AM]

______

He didn’t reply quickly after that, and V worried she had been too forward. She was trying to be friendly, but if Takemura saw whatever this was between them as a purely business contract, then she was sure to be creeping him out by being too involved in him personally.

She placed her phone face-down on her bed as she lay beneath the covers. She was already making peace with the damage control she might have to do for this text when her phone buzzed again. She grabbed it quickly, nervous to know what he might reply with.

_____

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Would it be uncomfortable an answer if I were to say yes?_ [5:50 AM]

______

Her heart trembled slightly at the sight of the text. It was almost too much to look at. She turned the screen off, not entering her message thread after seeing the banner of Takemura’s text appear. He texted again before she could compose herself enough to reply.

______

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Forgive me, V. My apologies._ [5:53 AM]

 _I should not have disturbed your rest._ [5:54 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _You didn’t disturb me at all!_ [5:56 AM]

 _I would love to meet earlier. What time??_ [5:57 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _How about ten this morning?_ [5:59 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _That sounds great!! I would love to._ [6:00 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _This is good to hear._ [6:00 AM]

_____

She closed her phone and held it with both hands over her chest, unable to stop from smiling. It had been so long since someone had expressed wanting to be around her. Jackie, despite their friendship, had often placed her aside in his pursuit of a relationship with Misty. And V had always been encouraging; Misty was a great woman; but she couldn’t deny the loneliness that plagued her life since her re-arrival in Night City six months prior. She truly had no friends here, and even the small amount of family she had left was a sorrowed shadow of what it once was.

If Takemura meant that V could pretend for however long it lasted that someone out there wanted to talk to _her_ , wanted to be near _her_ , wanted to invite _her_ places and tell _her_ nice things – she would hold onto it for as long as she could.

* * * * *

Promptly at ten that morning, V was already waiting in front of her building, sitting upon the steps leading up to it, two coffees and a small bunny backpack at her side where she sat. She had shirked her usual protective attire choices of netrunner suits and bulletproof vests and had instead donned simple overalls and a t-shirt. She hoped that Takemura’s invitation this morning would not be a surprise gun-fight somewhere, though she did admittedly still have a handgun hidden within the unassuming cover of her backpack, just in case.

 _Finger on the trigger, V,_ as Johnny would often say. _Always._

The pistol had been a gift from Jackie in the spring; a baby pink .45 he had custom ordered as a present to help her feel more at home in the city while she was living with him and Mama Welles. It was one of her most treasured possessions, and having it on her person made her feel like somehow, Jackie was still there at her side.

Takemura arrived shortly in front of Megabuilding H10, pulling up in the same van as was usual of him at this point. V wondered where he might have gotten it from at all.

She pulled her backpack on and grabbed the coffees from where they’d been placed, and then made quick work of the steps down to where he was waiting for her.

The passenger’s side window was rolled down, and as she approached, she leaned on the door and looked in at Takemura.

He appeared sleepy and refreshed at the same time, and V briefly let her mind wonder what the man might look like to wake up next to, though she quickly squashed the thought as it passed through her mind. Johnny gagged internally.

“Did I have you waiting long?” Takemura asked, regarding her in a way in which she had not been looked at in a very long time. He seemed…well, she could not truly think of the word. Something like interest. Something like excitement. Something like joy.

“Nope!” she said, though if she had been, she wouldn’t have told him. She held both coffees, one in her hand and the other held in the crook of her arm, and opened the passenger’s door.

Inside, she placed the two cups into the holder between their seats. Takemura watched her. He rolled the window up.

“You look very nice, V.”

“Thank you!” she said. “Oh, I brought you a coffee.” She pointed to it where it sat snuggled into its slot. “I hope it’s okay. And if it isn’t, you don’t have to drink it. I drove up to Yu Shen’s this morning and she made it for us. She likes to say that your day can only be as good as the coffee you start it with, so, ‘Let’s make everyday a good one.’”

“She is a wise woman,” he said, smiling softly.

“I’m sure she’d like to hear that,” V said. “Especially from you.”

“Especially from me?” he asked, returning onto the road and heading away from her building. “Why is this?”

“You’re not so terrible, Goro,” she said. “I’m sure you know you’re sort of endearing.”

“Endearing?” He made a sound of surprise. “I have not ever heard this.”

“Well, now you have.”

They drove somewhat aimlessly for a short while, and V wondered if this were perhaps a contrived assassination on her. Takemura seemed not to have a destination in mind, and he spoke little, so she had next to nothing to go off of.

After about ten minutes of driving nowhere in particular, Takemura said, “This is an unorthodox meeting. I know this.”

“And yet?” she asked.

“And yet I felt it necessary to see you again.”

Her heart jumped. She pushed this feeling down. “Not everything has to be doom-and-gloom, Goro. It’s okay to be reckless and do things just for fun sometimes.”

“I found myself…” He paused in thought as they rounded a corner. “…found myself unable to believe that you were alright, V; not unless I checked for myself.”

“Well,” she said, “that’s what being kind is all about. Making sure the other person is okay, even if it puts you out of your own way. And you’re very kind.”

“Oh…I do not think you should praise me, V. But…thank you, all the same.”

She hummed in response and looked towards the window; her legs were pulled up in the seat with her. A tune came to her mind that had been stuck in her head all morning and she finally realized it was _Chippin' In_. She tried to overwrite it before Johnny noticed it playing in her head.

“I have never seen you so casual in this manner.”

V looked back to Takemura at his words.

“Well,” she said, “it didn’t seem like you were inviting me to anything life-threatening…so I just dressed normally.”

“The tour you were supposed to give me before…” he said. “I would like to ask again for this.”

“Oh!” She shuffled to sit up better in her seat. “Well, I didn’t expect that. Honestly, I was starting to get kind of worried where you were taking me.” She laughed somewhat tensely. “A tour, huh? Well, I kind of thought you only asked the first time just to be nice. You actually want one?”

“You are my single contact in this entire city, V. There is no one else to ask.”

“Oh…okay.”

“I am sorry,” he added quickly. “Those words came out incorrectly. My meaning is that I feel a comfortable familiarity with you, V. I would not like to ask anyone else for these favors because what I really want is to ask them of _you.”_

“Oh, well, then…color me surprised.”

“What does that mean?”

“It just means…I’m surprised to hear that. I really didn’t think you wanted anything to do with me outside of what we absolutely have to do.”

“You chided me for my lack of fun," he said. "So here I am.”

V gave a soft little laugh and took a drink of her coffee, then held the cup in her hands to think about how comfortable it felt to hold.

“You want to see my favorite spot?” she asked, after some consideration of what exactly a worthwhile tour of this city could entail.

“This is to be the first stop on the tour?”

“Yes!" she said excitedly. "First stop on the tour…V’s favorite spot!”

“You are childlike,” he said suddenly, in a way which told V he had been unable to hold back from speaking his mind.

She turned in her seat to look at him with knitted brows. “Huh?” she asked, a smile coming to her lips ever so slightly at his words.

“You are a childlike woman, V,” he reiterated. “You seem unbothered by our situation. I do not know how you do this.”

“Well…don’t get me wrong – I am terrified,” she said. “But, if I don’t try to have meaningless fun at the same time as the bad stuff, then, I don’t think I’d be able to pull through.”

“I struggle to be able to have ‘meaningless fun’, V. This was never a part of my life.”

“If you enjoy the time you spent,” she said, “then it wasn’t meaningless. If the bad times weren’t there, then the simple good times wouldn’t feel so wonderful. Sometimes life really is just as good as the cup of coffee you had that day. And that’s okay.”

He smiled at her words and then gestured to the road. "So, where are we going?"

"Just follow my instructions," she said with her usual goofy smile. 

* * * * *

“I come here to be alone.”

They stood in front of the Columbarium, its tall stone pillars as an urban forest before them, fading away into a shadowy collection of concrete trees.

“We have similar places in Japan,” Takemura said. The two walked up the steps to go inside. “Though I admit I have not spent extended time there.”

"I've been coming here almost everyday, lately," V explained, looking over to Jackie's placement as they passed it, though she did not bring this up to Takemura.

"Where are we going, exactly, V?" he asked as they shuffled politely past a group of mourners.

"It's back this way," she pointed, indicating they had deeper still to enter into the area.

They made their way all the way to the back and rounded a corner to reveal a tall ladder leading up to the top of the scattered posts in the area. V put her hand on the ladder and smiled.

“We can climb up here," she said. "If we come up from this angle, the guards can’t see us.”

Takemura looked to the ladder, then to her, very seriously. “V, I do not believe this is legal.”

“But jumping on Hanako Arasaka’s parade float is?” she said, though she regretted that this was something that could have come from Johnny's very lips. "Well, I'm gonna go up. If you wanna stay down here, that's okay."

V began to climb up the ladder, but Takemura grabbed lightly onto a strap of her overalls. She turned to look down at him.

"Alright," he said, "do not leave without me." 

She smiled brightly and climbed further up to allow him room to begin up the ladder behind her. It was a good thirty feet or so to the very top, and she carefully positioned herself so that there was room for Takemura to join her.

"There isn't a lot of room," V said, "so be careful. And be careful not to fall, either."

She stepped away from the edge as much as she could and then made the small leap to the next pillar. 

"V!" Takemura reprimanded as quietly as he could while still sounding stern. "We are really testing the limits of the law, here."

"Just get over here!" she said. "It's worth it, I promise."

She jumped across the tops of the posts for about five rows across, each time plopping down with a resounding two-footed landing in her sneakers. 

At the very outermost southern end, she sat down and let her legs hang over the side and leaned back on her hands. 

She turned back to see Takemura carefully following her path and making his way over to where she was, taking looks downwards to the people below to ensure he was not seen.

When he finally crossed to her, he sat down at her left and repeated her position of having their legs hang over the edge.

"You certainly are putting me to work," he said. 

"And you're not putting _me_ to work?" she asked, bumping his leg with her own. He shook his head chastizingly, but she saw him smile. 

"True enough."

They sat quietly for a beat, looking out over exactly what it was that V had brought him here to see. And, it was just this. 

From here, the entire stretch of the Badlands could be witnessed, all of its orange and yellow and red hues blending in a strange and blistering dust cloud over the horizon. It was as different and desolate a comparison beside Night City as any single location could be. 

At her side, Takemura became briefly distracted, looking to his left at something which he was running his hand over. V caught on to this and turned to see what he was noticing.

“V, what is this?” he asked.

Takemura’s hand was placed upon the stone they sat on - there was a carving of words atop the pillar.

“Ah!" she said, pulling one leg up and holding onto it at her ankle. "That was back a few years ago when I was first thinking of a nickname for myself.”

“Nemesis V?” he read, and looked to her for confirmation.

“The Nemesis part never caught on. Everybody just called me V, so, well; it stuck.”

"Why this name?" he asked.

“I picked Nemesis from the Greek goddess of retribution and revenge. Sounds…on the nose, I know. But I was nineteen. I was angry.”

She looked back out to the sandy fields in the distance. “Everybody in the Bakkers had an alias; to protect ourselves when we went on runs. It was a way to keep us safe. That was a rule. Never give anyone your real name.”

“I can see how this rule has affected you, V.”

"Well," she said, "I know you know better than anyone how our pasts can affect us forever."

Takemura exhaled and the two of them silently watched the Badlands present itself to them visually in a million different little ways.

“My life," Takemura began, "has become soluble in a…” He sighed. “…in a way in which I could never have anticipated.”

V turned to him, their hands briefly brushing, though she kept her distance.

“I became unrightfully, foolishly comfortable in the company of the Arasakas. With Saburo-sama gone, there is no one left who would keep me around. I have only now learned, through hindsight, that though I may have been a bodyguard of his…it was, in reality, _he_ who protected _me_. Because as soon as he was gone, I was discarded like I meant nothing. Truly I am humbled.”

V nodded, though she added nothing to this statement as his story seemed not to be asking for advice or response. Takemura, it had come to her, was often looking for a soundboard to confide in, but he was resistant to her aid in the form of words, so she maintained her silence on the matter. 

“You ever seen the Badlands like this?” she asked.

“I have certainly seen the enormous piles of garbage laying at the apex of the city and the desert, yes." He pointed down to them. "Tell me, is it normal in your city for young women to appear thrown into these piles?”

“I try not to make it a habit.”

“Well," he said, "I should like not to find you there again, certainly.”

"I'll do my best."

“But, no,” he said. “To answer your question, I have not had the opportunity to venture much further than the city line.”

“Would you like to?”

“Perhaps when this is all over," he said. "There is so much space, out there. I feel that I do not know how to look at it all.”

“Is it that different?” V asked.

“We do not have lands such as these in Japan; at least, not entirely. It would be untrue to claim that we have them not at all, but, this particular kind of arid western-American climate is a fascinating change of scenery unavailable in my country.”

"I come up here to remember it all," V said. "To feel like the city isn't everything."

“This is good," he said. "Sometimes I myself forget that there is more to this world than mere cities. I have spent far too long in Tokyo to remember that there truly lies a vast and breathing earth upon this planet.”

V leaned on her right palm; elbow pressed into her thigh. She looked at him. “Are Night City and Tokyo really so different?”

“We have very fast elevators in Tokyo,” he stated. “The elevators here? Not fast.” He shook his head in chide. “Such innovative elevator technology is lost on American engineers, clearly.”

V laughed and said, “Well, then that’s just one more thing I’ll have to see when I go to Japan, then.”

“And this name,” he continued, “‘Night City’; what is its purpose? Surely you all will not forget you live in a city should the name of it not remind you. And why is it ‘Night’?”

“The city is named after Richard Night,” V said, “so that one actually has a reason. But remind me never to take you to New York City.”

“I have heard of this man. Richard Night. Was he not murdered?”

“Well,” V laughed again. “Yeah. You got me there.”

“A city that needs to remind its citizens what it is every time they read the name is called so after a murdered man.” He looked out to the skyline. “Truly a place of wonders.”

V laughed and they resettled into comfortable quietness, as was customary to them by this time. V readjusted her sitting position multiple times every few minutes, though Takemura never really moved. She could not believe the resilience of the man to sit for so long. 

He spoke suddenly.

“May I offer you something, V?” he asked.

“Huh?” She looked at him. 

“I…I have something, for you.”

“Oh?" V said, now sitting crisscrossed. " Exchanging gifts now, are we?” she asked. “And here I didn’t get you anything.”

“Ah,” he said. “There is no need.”

“I know.” She smiled. “I was just joking. Not that I wouldn’t get you something; it’s just that I didn’t know you were going to bring this up.”

Into the leather messenger bag he had often at his side, he rummaged through and she watched over his shoulder.

Turning back to her, he placed a simple, golden gift box before her, the size of a decently large book and tied with a red ribbon.

Carefully removing the loose knot of the ribbon and pulling it aside, V slid the lid off to reveal white tissue paper within, which she unfolded.

Inside, there lay a light pink yukata dress with cherry blossoms printed all across the surface of the fabric.

“I thought that you could wear this during the parade tonight,” Takemura said, gesturing towards the dress. “To better blend into the crowd.”

V softly ran her fingertips along the collar.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, “but, shouldn’t I dress to be prepared for the possibility of…being shot at? Maimed? Sliced beyond all repair?” She touched the dress. “I wouldn’t want to get blood all over this. It’s too nice.”

“If you walk into a crowd of people dressed in riot gear with an assault weapon strapped to your back, this will surely tip off Arasaka security,” Takemura said. “Your usual style gives you right away. A bulletproof vest is not a common accessory of the normal parade-goer.”

“Well,” she said, “I guess when you put it that way…you’re probably right. Cops always get scared when they see people looking mildly threatening.”

“Wearing this dress could encourage you to maintain an element of stealth,” he explained. “If you initiate a direct fight, the dress will become damaged. Incentive to remain hidden, yes? Think of it as my asking you to return it to me unscathed. Should I see you again after the parade, alive and with dress intact, then we will have succeeded.”

V replaced the lid over the box. She held it securely beneath her arms, fingers curling around the edge. “You have doubts that we’ll be able to do this,” she said.

“It would be unwise to assume we cannot fail.” Takemura shook his head. “We must accommodate every possibility.” He placed his hand near hers on the box. “But, do you see how I have presented a hopeful ultimatum? I am giving you this dress because I trust that you will be able to return it to me.”

“And where did this dress come from, exactly?”

He grinned slightly, and said, “Survive the parade and perhaps I will tell you.”

“Well,” V said, “aren’t you just full of joy and light this morning…”

“Ultimately, it is up to you, though, V. I cannot make you wear it." He pulled his hand away. "Regardless, I would like you to have it.”

“I’m sorry if I made you feel like I didn’t appreciate it by asking you a bunch of questions about your intentions. Thank you, Goro. Really, it is beautiful.”

“You are welcome, V.”

They both took a breather from the conversation and looked out towards the desert. Tiny blips of movement scattered all along the yellow sand told V that different nomad clans were awake and well as they moved about their own mornings, far across the distance. The glimmering blurriness of a heatwave was present way beyond her eyes.

“May I say something, V?” Takemura asked quietly.

“Of course,” she said cheerily. “And, you don’t have to ask for permission every time to want to say something. It’s okay.”

“I will say this once, and, please know that it is a great difficulty for me to mention this. Forgive me for how my words may sound.”

“Goro?”

“I am lost in this city, V,” he said. “And truly, you are not the usual company I have kept in my life. But I thank you for not discarding me.”

“Why would I just throw you away? You’re a kickass fighter, Goro. That would be silly of me. And you’re kind of way stronger than I am, so, I mean…isn’t it obvious?”

“Silly,” he said. “There is that word again. Hm. You have made me reconsider the importance of trivial things.”

“Saburo Arasaka didn’t let you do _anything_ fun?” she teased. “Nothing at all?”

“You poke at me, V, but please understand that the protection of Saburo-sama was of the greatest joy to me. Fun was unnecessary. If you could ever have known him, I believe that you could have found humanity within, and perhaps grown fond.”

V shook her head, and said, “I think that, to really know a person, you have to hear from someone who loves them and someone who hates them. The truth is somewhere in-between. You owe Saburo Arasaka your life.” She turned to him. “And yet, I think I’m less interested in the wonder of what he’s done for you than I am in the tragedy of all that he hasn’t done for many others. Didn’t you say that the right things you didn’t do were what you regretted most?”

“Saburo-sama was not some cartoonish villain out to destroy us all, V,” he said. “Do not act as though you know what you are talking about.”

“Truly malicious people don’t appear as villains to us,” she said. “They don’t make you feel fear. They’ll make you choose a terrible fate of your own accord and you’ll think it was a thought you came up with yourself. The Devil doesn’t drag you to Hell. He convinces you to walk there willingly.”

“The Devil?” Takemura asked. "Where have you come up with this?"

“My friend really likes tarot,” she said. “Guess she’s rubbing off on me. But do you understand?”

“If you are implying that the Arasakas are evil,” Takemura jeered, “then that is a childishly immature stance to present to me, V.”

V sighed. “I’m only trying to say that what we think and what’s actually real are two completely different things. When you’re too close, you can’t see. Nobody knows when they’re being manipulated.”

Takemura shuffled to turn from her. “I did not come here to be lectured, V.”

“You lecture me all the time,” she said, hand going up to place on his shoulder as he looked away. “Why can’t I speak back? Dish it out but you can’t take it?”

She released her hand and he peered over his shoulder at her.

“You specifically have positive experiences of the Arasaka family, Goro – because of your unique opportunity to have been in their good graces. But if I, V, dropped dead in the streets…Saburo Arasaka would have stepped over my body and kept walking.”

He sighed heavily and slumped where he sat. She waited for him to respond, silently preparing her next defense points in her head.

When he did speak, though, he only said, “Please forgive me if I have not been the traveling companion you expect.”

“Oh, Goro. You don’t need to apologize.”

“I will say this once and I will not mention it again.” He shuffled to face more directly towards her. “Are you alright to hear words that may strike a nerve?”

“Yes, I am,” she said. “Go ahead.”

“I am sorry about the loss of your friend. I am no replacement, but I appreciate that you saw fit to give me your time when you have clearly lost much. For what it is worth, I am indebted to your continued presence. There.” He turned away. “I will now say nothing more of it.”

“Friends don’t owe each other favors. They do things for each other because they want to. You don’t owe me anything, Goro.”

“We are to be friends, then?” he asked, skepticism underscoring his voice.

“If…that’s alright with you,” V offered, giving him ample opportunity to relinquish her statement and set a boundary between their personal lives and their work.

Takemura pointed out to the vast expanse of desert laying out before them. “Dust storm on the horizon,” he said. “We should return to the city soon. Preparations for the parade need to be made.”

He looked down at his hands and put them together atop his lap, rubbing his thumbs over the silvery lines of the modifications running along his fingers.

“I have not had a friend in a very long time,” he said. “I would like this.”

V smiled.

“Me too," she said, and then she laughed. "I still haven't given you that tour yet."

"A tour that goes one place at a time," Takemura said, himself smiling just as her. "This is what we will do."

* * * * *

Johnny shoved the box back into her hands. _‘What a joke,’_ he said.

V was back home in her apartment, holding Takemura’s gift of the dress as she stood in front of her closet while Johnny breathed down her neck in annoyance.

“Well, I happen to think it’s great,” she said, placing the box neatly inside her closet. She turned to him where he had disappeared and reappeared, now rolling around the room in her computer chair. “And it’s not like you’ve ever given me anything, so don’t judge.”

He stopped moving and stood to follow her as she crossed over to the couch.

_‘I’ve given you lots of things, V. Cut me some slack.’_

“You’ve given me nothing except a permanent headache.” She flopped down on the cushions. “And heartburn. And stomach cramps. And, I don’t know, whatever else is going wrong, you probably did that too. I think there was an earthquake on the news this morning. Was that you?”

_'Oh, so that’s what you think of me?’ he asked. ‘Well, I know there’s one thing I didn’t give you.’_

“And what’s that, Johnny?” she asked, eyes resting closed.

 _‘Stupid idiot syndrome,’_ he said. _‘You already had that. And it’s terminal.’_

“Terminal you say?” she asked, laying down and placing her head atop a pillow. “Well, I guess I’m lucky it’ll all be over soon, then. Let me go peacefully, Johnny.”

_‘Don’t let me walk all over you, V. Hit me back with something. Come on!’_

“Okay,” she said, still laying there. “If I have terminal stupid idiot syndrome, then…then it must be contagious. Because you’re the…” She yawned. “…you’re the biggest stupid idiot out there.”

_‘Oh yeah?’_

“Yeah,” she said, settling into a more comfortable position. “And you look like a big dumb meanie, too. What do you think about that?”

_‘I’m a big dumb meanie?’_

“Yeah,” she said, “the biggest.”

_‘That’s the best you’ve got? Are you five?’_

She sat back up.

“You started with stupid idiot syndrome and _I_ can’t use big dumb meanie?” she asked. “Sounds to me like something a big dumb meanie would say.”

 _‘Fine!’_ he said _,_ tossing his hands to the air. _‘Well, you’re…you’re so ugly that I bet mirrors explode when you look in them!’_

“Oh yeah?” V asked, standing up from the couch and getting up close to where he stood, finger wagging towards him. “Well, Keanu Reeves called and he wants his _fucking face back!”_

_‘Bitch!’_

“Manwhore!”

_‘Cunt!”_

“Asshole!”

_‘Slut!’_

“Bastard!”

_‘Dumbass!’_

“Shithead!”

_‘Pussy!’_

“Oh, you, you…you…”

_‘That all you got?’_

“I can’t think of anymore cusswords,” she said exasperatedly, falling back to a defeated position on the couch. “Bet you stole all of ‘em. See? All you do is take things from me. Can’t even leave me any good insults.”

 _‘I can think of at least fifteen more,’_ he said, taking the seat to her left.

“Well,” she said, waving her hands in the air. “I’m glad to know you’re a man of culture.”

_‘And I’m glad to know you’re a woman who can recognize a man of culture.”_

“Well, I’m glad to know that you think me being a woman who can call out a man of culture makes me a woman of culture.”

_‘That doesn’t even make any sense.’_

“Well, maybe I wasn’t trying to.”

_‘Fine.’_

“Fine.”

_‘Fine.”_

“Fine!”

_'You wanna make out?’_

“No thanks,” she said. “Well…” She shook her head. “No. I mean… _no.”_

_‘So, I’m hearing a maybe.’_

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she said. “You’re still me.”

_‘Which means I’d know exactly what you like.’_

“Well, I’ve never kissed anyone before, so, no, you wouldn’t. Because I don’t even know.”

 _‘Excuse me?’_ he asked. _‘What was that I just heard?’_

“Great,” she said. “Another thing for you to bully me with. Alright, go for it. Lay it on me.”

_‘Hm.’_

“What?" she asked. "Got nothing?”

 _‘You should go to bed, V.’_ He stood from the couch and paced around the room. _'Got an important night tonight. And if it goes badly, then it’ll be the last one of your life.’_

“Done talking about it already?” she asked. “Where’d the Johnny from two seconds ago go? Cat got his tongue?”

_‘Nevermind, V. This day blows. See you later.’_

"Fine, Johnny. I'll see you."

And he was gone. 

She began alone on preparations for the night to come.


	7. The More You Burn Away, The More That People Earn From You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra long chapter; hope that's okay!! Do you all like long chapters? I can never tell. ^_^

C H A P T E R S E V E N

_The More You Burn Away, The More That People Earn From You_

What did one do before walking into the final moments of their life?

People sitting on death row are permitted a final meal, so perhaps it is food that can be considered the very last human right before death – and yet V’s stomach was in too complete a disarray for this. Whatever butterflies she may have held inside her the day prior from excitement, today those butterflies became moths which ate away at the soft fabric of her nerves.

She attempted a short nap, at Johnny’s suggestion, though this did little at all to quell the anticipation for what was to come. Her fear and doubt were settling heavy in her heart and mind, and she wished she could only wake up and have it all be over and done with. The last time she had participated in a singular event this risky and life-changing, it had gone badly for every party involved.

The failure of her nap had led her to toss in a load of wash into her floor’s laundry room, and then pop out on a short grocery trip a block away, to which she attempted to pretend she was buying foods for a regular night, on a regular day – a day in which this food would not potentially be the last she would ever eat.

Her mind was scattered and jumping three steps ahead to what was to come, anticipating the mental landmines that plagued her every waking moment, careful not to disrupt their fragile dispositions. This parade was a grenade and she would pull the pin willingly.

V returned to her apartment and deposited the modest bags of groceries and then promptly dropped the idea of food from the forefront of her mind, shuffling away into the storage room to take stock of available weapons for the night.

Johnny’s voice came from the open area of her home and trailed to where she was. _‘What did you get from the store?’_

She heard this, certainly, though it passed through one ear and right out the other as a whisper. His words were practically her thoughts, and she dismissed this one as a pressing demon within her own mind. She stared intently at the wall of guns placed carefully into their appropriate slots, taking one out, checking it over, and putting it back.

_‘V, I’m talkin’ to ya.’_

“Huh?” she asked, frazzled somewhat at all she had to prepare for in the next few hours. She turned to the sound of his voice to see him leaning around the corner to see what she was doing.

_'V?’_

She shook her head at her own dottiness. “The bags are on top of the fridge if you want to look. You should’ve picked food out with me if you were so curious.”

She pulled down Jackie’s golden pistols, a gift to her from Mama Welles as the older woman had told her that Jackie would rather they be used than sit around and have no purpose. But…V struggled to ever take them out with her, too fearful of damaging or losing them somehow. These guns were the very last possession he had ever owned, and she felt that they remained with him, still. He had unfinished business with those pistols, and V didn’t think it right to pull them out at every whim – even if Jackie loved whims and impulses.

Sadness boiled her, and suddenly, V didn’t feel much like lingering long with her arsenal. She replaced the twin _La Chingona Doradas_ and exited back out into her apartment.

She fretted momentarily with what to do next, hands upon her hips then falling. Johnny stood at her fridge, rummaging through the grocery bags. She crossed to her bed to pick up her hamper and passed out of the room into the hallway to walk to the laundry room.

She picked at a broken piece of plastic on the basket as she made her way down to the washing and drying machines, running her thumb along it and focusing on the way it felt beneath the pad of her finger.

When she returned back from exchanging her previously washed clothes with the next hamper of dirty ones, she lay out the clean laundry on her bed and began to fold it into sorted little piles.

 _‘Olives again, V?’_ he whined, glass jar in hand as he turned to her. _‘You know I don’t like olives.’_

V was folding towels to place in her bathroom. “Well not everything I do is to please you, your majesty.”

_'Why are you cleaning right now anyway, V?’_

“If I die tonight, I don’t want everyone to show up here and see ANY mess,” she said, hanging those fresh towels on the rack by her shower. “Everything needs to be spotless so I can be remembered as a tidy, well-organized girl. They could say a lot of things about me, but at least,” she picked the hamper back up and placed it beside her bed, “…at least they won’t be able to say that I was messy.”

She walked over to him and took the jar from his hands, popping it open with somewhat difficulty and picked an olive out to eat, chewing thoughtfully. She looked at the label.

 _'Stop eating those,’_ Johnny groaned. _‘I fucking hate them.’_

“No,” she said, taking out another one and putting it in her mouth.

He grabbed her cheeks between his thumb and fingers and squeezed to try and push the olive out.

 _‘Spit it out,’_ he said. _‘Spit it out right now!’_

She chewed quickly and swallowed it, opening her mouth to show him that it was gone. He let go of her face and she stuck her tongue out at him.

_‘Anything that goes into your mouth falls into my stomach! And I fucking hate olives!’_

V closed the jar and placed it back on the fridge. “You’re such a baby.”

She picked around in the bags as he watched over her shoulder. “What does his majesty _want_ to eat, then?” she asked.

_‘His majesty wants you to have an actual kitchen and not just one pan that you pathetically cook over your sad little portable stove.’_

“Well, we can’t all live in Michelin-star apartments, Johnny.”

She pulled frozen items into her arms and knelt to tuck them inside the freezer of her fridge – however small it may have been.

 _‘Did you get lamb skewers?’_ he asked, and she looked up at him.

“Is that what you want?” she asked.

He crossed his arms and looked away from her. _‘Not like it’s…real meat, anyway.’_

She stood from where he was next to her and walked to her closet to pull down a huge wok she stored there, taking it over to where she kept her portable stove and placed it on top, cranking up the heat.

She grabbed the package of soy lamb skewers and held it up to him. “They’ll be ready in a little while,” she said.

Johnny remained quiet as they waited, the two of them sitting around the wok where it was placed on the floor now between her bed and couch, each of them on a pillow. V had placed a grilling rack over the wok to lay the skewers on – this was the best she could manage with what little kitchen equipment she had – and was turning them slowly to cook.

They made small talk as they sat, somewhat comfortable but still distanced.

 _‘You’ve barely lived, V,’_ Johnny said _. ‘And now you’ve got some washed-up old man living in your head.’_

“You’re not an old man.” She turned the skewers slowly, making sure every side was properly cooked. “I mean, what are you, eighty-nine? All things considered, that’s practically the new twenty-two.”

_‘Technically I died at thirty-five.’_

“See?” she said, taking off a few skewers onto a plate and handing it to Johnny, to which he accepted. She served a plate for herself as well. “Not old at all.”

 _‘Yeah,’_ he said, _‘just barely got started before I threw it all to shit.’_

“Well, when we get you your body back, you can put it all back together again.”

_‘Wouldn’t even know where to start. World’s moved on without me, V. Don’t know where I fit in anymore.’_

“Well…” She paused, considering, and somewhat reluctantly added, “You’ve always got me.”

_‘I’d make fun of you for being so goddamn sentimental if it didn’t actually feel...kind of good...to hear that. But don’t think this means you know me.’_

She took a bite and held the wooden skewer to her lips for a moment, then placed it back down on the plate. “Wouldn’t think so for the world.”

He nodded, mimicking her actions near exactly as they both shared one singular experience of this meal. _‘Good.’_

“Good,” she said, reaching to the plate again.

They chewed in relative quietness, Johnny obviously happy to have this food which had become one of his favorites since meeting V.

 _‘Can’t believe you’ve never kissed anybody,’_ he said suddenly.

“Oh?” she asked, mouth full of a bite. “I thought you’d dropped this.”

_‘You sure you don’t wanna make out?’_

“Pretty sure.”

_‘Well, offer’s there.’_

“How generous of you.”

_‘Eh, I do what I can.’_

“You’re a real man of the people, Johnny.”

Their night proceeded now with little interception from him, likely sated by the food they’d shared. She dressed quickly in the yukata which Takemura had given her and went to the bathroom to place a few plastic sakura flowers into her hair. She had considered whether or not she should wear the outfit briefly, but ultimately decided it would be worth it because it had been such a kind gift.

Johnny appeared behind her in the mirror.

_‘You’re actually wearing that, V? You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me.’_

“I’m sorry that you’re so heartless you can’t appreciate someone giving you a gift, but this was a really nice one.” Pulling up the skirt of the dress, V attached two gun-belts, one to each thigh, and placed pistols snugly inside them. “And I’m wearing it even if it means I have less protection tonight.”

_‘He just gave it to you so he’d have something to look at.’_

“We’re not even going to be in the same place tonight, Johnny. He was just being nice. Not everybody has ulterior motives. It’s tradition, and he was sharing that with me, which he didn’t have to do, but he did anyway; and I appreciate it.”

_‘Oh, I’m sure he’s really gonna **appreciate** it too.’_

“Johnny, please.” She popped the chamber of a miniature revolver to check the ammo level – full six – and then slid it into a holster strapped to her left forearm and hidden beneath her sleeve. “Please, I really need you on my side tonight.”

_‘Whatever you say, V.’_

Disappearing into her weapons’ room again, she returned with a handful of different guns which she spread onto her coffee table. She knelt down beside them and regarded each one, unable to decide which to choose and which to leave behind. Limited space meant less weapons.

Grabbing the pistol which had been a gift from Jackie, she kissed the barrel and tucked it inside a small straw handbag which was currently holding her cellphone. She hoped the purse would be inconspicuous enough that nobody would assume what was inside. She tucked a scattering of ammo for her pistols into secret pockets of fabric all over herself, adjusting them as best she could so as to not look too obvious that she was hiding something.

She went to close the door to her weapons’ room, but hesitated there, hand pressed flat against the door.

“I’m coming back,” she said to herself. “I _will_ come back.”

* * * * *

V found Takemura waiting in Japantown where he always was, looking over the railing. He tossed a kebab stick of yakitori down below as she made her way to him.

Night was falling slowly. Her nerves were shot on edge.

“V.” Takemura stunted slightly at her approach. He regarded her entire appearance as she stepped closer, and settled on her face. “It is very good to see you.”

He bowed his head slightly, something which he had never done for her before, and she was taken aback.

Unknowing how to respond, she bowed her head back and said, “Good to see you too, Goro.”

“You wore the dress,” he said, gesturing towards her, to which she looked down at her own self. “You are…” He hesitated. “...It is a very beautiful dress. You will blend in well.”

“Oh,” V said, looking at it herself somewhat embarrassed at the attention. She pinched the fabric of the skirt and then released it. “Yes, it’s very beautiful. Thank you again, for it.”

“You are prepared for what is to come, V?”

“As much as I can be,” she said. “I’ll give it my best.”

“This is all that we can ask for. Our best.”

She clutched her bag with both hands, nervously readjusting her stance and teetering absentmindedly in her zori sandals. Perhaps it was a mistake to wear such incorrect footwear for criminal activity.

“When this is all done,” she asked, “what do you want to do next?”

Takemura was fiddling with a wire which he was aligning his jacket with. “How do you mean, V?”

“Well,” she said, picking at a plastic sakura flower she had placed in her hair. “Well, if we survive…we could go eat somewhere.”

He scoffed humoredly, still lining the wire. “Surely a meal in this city is not an equitable reward for a job well done.”

“You have a better idea?” she asked. He pulled the collar of his coat to firmly adjust it and looked to her.

“We can discuss further plans when we meet again in a few hours.”

“Shouldn’t we have something to look forward to?” she asked.

“V, I look forward only to the opportunity to prove our innocence.”

V cast her eyes towards the sky, making eye-contact with the tallest building she could find. “You see that building, way out there?” she said.

He turned to follow the direction of her point. “Yes?”

“When we’re done here tonight, we’re gonna get some food and go up there and sit and eat it. How’s that?”

“You truly want me to suffer the flavors of this place, V.”

“But do you agree?”

“We will see.”

“Please?” she begged.

“We will see, V,” he said firmly. “I cannot make promises I do not know that I can keep. I hope you understand. I do not want to disappoint you.”

“I don’t really think you could disappoint me even if you tried, Goro. You’re too good of a person to do that.”

“V, please,” he said. “I do not need your compliments.”

“Goro, we might never see one another again. I think a few compliments are okay.”

Music called out in the distance, signaling that the parade would soon begin.

“Are you ready?” he asked, standing up straighter. 

“Ready as ever,” she said. “How about you? Ready to face Hanako?”

“She is a woman of supreme merit. I worry not.”

“What if Oda is with her?”

“Oda was within my tutelage for many years," he said. "He will not raise his hand against his former teacher.”

“You’re a disgraced man, Goro; in their eyes,” V said. “I don’t know if he would see it that way.”

“Even if it were true that I was this criminal Arasaka so claim, Oda would remain steadfast in his principles. He will not fight me. This I guarantee.”

“But in the moment that you jump on that float, you could be anybody. Oda has to be prepared for any threat.”

Takemura considered this quietly. “Hm. This is true. But hopefully our worries will be unnecessary, in the end. I must say, though, V. If Oda attempts to fight you, do not engage. You will not win. And I will not be there to help you.”

“There’s a chance he could come after me?”

“We are terrorists at this parade, V,” he said seriously. “You are as much a threat as I. Should Oda set his targets on you…”

_“What? What, Goro?”_

“Just be hopeful that he will exert mercy.”

“Great,” she said, throwing her hands to the air pathetically. “I’m dead.”

“This is why we will hope that his appearance is merely a futile fear of ours.”

He reached into the bag at his hip and pulled from it something small which V could not see well.

“Here, V.” He handed her a little black earpiece. “Keep this on you and we can use it to remain in contact hands-free.”

She tucked the tech into her right ear and pressed to make sure it was secure. “Alright,” she said.

“I also have these for you,” he said, and opened a small black box which contained three syringe vials.

“Takemura?” V asked concernedly.

“These are non-lethal doses of a tranquilizing drug which will incapacitate the snipers. You can use these to depose them.”

“I don’t know about this, Takemura,” she said, reaching out to run her fingertips along the glass vials. “This is all pretty… _heavy.”_

“Heavy?” he asked. “How does this mean?”

“Heavy,” she said, “like…like _really_ intense. _Really_ important.”

“Hm. I have not heard this much before.” He closed the box and held it out for her to take. “We are not killing anyone, V, but should you be caught, they will surely not extend the same favor to you. These doses will simply put them out of our way as necessary tonight, and tomorrow they will wake up completely unaware of what has happened."

“I’ve never used anything like this,” V said, taking the container into her own hands and then slipping it into her bag alongside the pistol.

“There are only three chances here, V. Should this not work, alternate measures will need to be taken.”

“Meaning it’s all on me,” she said, slumping in her stance.

He grabbed her by the shoulder firmly. “V, remember that we are equal partners tonight. A machine cannot run without the sum of its parts. What you shall do will make what I do possible. And what I perform could surely free us both from this nightmare enacted by Yorinobu’s actions. We are on level ground tonight.”

V blew out air dramatically. “Lotta pressure.”

“You have been a kind ally, V.”

“See you on the other side, Goro."

* * * * *

Nightfall. Nine twenty-three PM. The trilling sound of the koto permeates the sky as a wave of music befalls the parading streets. Cheering crowds waterfall Japantown, their voices coming as a chorus of excitement and wonder.

To the air, V held the palm of her right hand faced up, catching holographic cherry blossom petals as they cascaded from the nighttime sky and disappeared through her skin.

Takemura’s voice chimed in her earpiece. “V,” he said, sound strained through the electronic interface barrier between them over the call. It was somewhat difficult to hear him entirely given the enormous mass that was the crowds of paradegoers surrounding her. “I am connected through to you and waiting at the designated location. Are you in your starting position?”

“Starting position is a go, Goro,” V said, pressing against the piece in her ear to ensure it was secure. “Ready whenever you are.”

She looked over the banister towards the dozens of feet that shot to the ground far below. Her heart shook at the sight, not from the idea of heights but from the sheer likelihood that her being caught would probably entail them throwing her hundreds of feet down into a crushed puddle of V.

“You know, I’m really starting to think you may have cut me the short end of the stick, Goro.” She gazed anxiously around at the people at her every side. “Lotta people out tonight. Gettin’ kinda nervous.”

“V,” he said. “You are a resilient woman and I would not have given you so arduous a task did I not believe you capable. I place my full trust in you that you shall succeed, and it is with my most fervency that I commandeer you towards this shared goal of ours. We cannot fail. I will not allow it.”

"Alright," she said. "I'm gonna get going."

She turned from the rail and walked through the crowds as best she could, crossing their usual bridge and making her way up a series of metal staircases which clanged loudly against her wooden shoes. She looked out to the floats as they began to pass by and wished that she could only be there tonight as a witness, and not an active participant. At the end of a long walkway, there were a set of double-doors unguarded by anyone at all.

V traipsed through a gathered cluster of older Japanese women standing close to a bit of railing, dressed in traditional robes and chattering excitedly words which she did not understand. “Goro, I’m pretty scared."

“The first sniper is nearly within your range,” Takemura said as she arrived at the doors. “See, this is not so hard as we imagined. Our worries were for nothing. Pass through these doors and round the corner to a short ladder. He is waiting on the scaffolding in front of an electronic sign.”

V checked her surroundings quickly and then passed through, closing the doors behind her to ensure no one would catch on and follow. “Alright, I’m inside,” she said.

“This is good,” he said. “Let me know when it is done.”

She disabled a mine near the door with her Kiroshis and walked to the ladder at the opposite end of the room, climbing carefully up and then jumping to pull herself over a short ledge. 

At the top, she could hear the sniper calling out directions to her upper left into his headset, naming off suspicious people spotted out in the crowds.

She crossed behind the platform he was waiting on and knelt to open her bag, retrieving the box of vials and hesitating on the clasp.

“You’re sure this isn’t going to kill them, Goro?” she asked. “I’ve never killed anyone before.”

“V,” he said. “I would not task you with something unknown to you. That would be betrayal of the trust you have placed in me.”

“Alright,” she said sheepishly, and held the box open on her thighs from where she hid in the darkness.

She pulled one syringe from the container and removed its cap, then pushed slightly – careful to not allow the liquid to touch her – and removed any air bubbles.

Coming around the corner as slyly as possible, she climbed up onto the platform and slid out of the sniper’s field of view towards him. She held the syringe somewhat worriedly tight in her right hand and then – as nicely as one possibly could – slid it into an exposed bit of neck.

The man’s hand shot to the place of injection and felt around, turning momentarily to her, which made her jump back in surprise, dodging his grab as he reached out to her but fell forward limply instead. His body twitched and he fell still. V’s heart raced.

She knelt down at his side and examined him. He was still breathing. She sighed in relief.

“Goro,” she said into her ear piece. “First one down.”

“Remove his headset and toss it over the banister.”

“Alright,” she said, and pulled the man’s helmet from him and threw it off to its descent many meters down into the streets of Japantown.

“The next will require some climbing,” Takemura said. “You will need to cross the street from above by way of the maintenance tunnel a few floors up.”

Jumping down to where she had left her bag, V replaced the empty syringe into the case and closed it, returning it to its keeping place. She walked across the landing and climbed a series of air conditioning units and metal platforms to reach the level above, where people were standing. A few regarded her strangely as she suddenly appeared beside them after seeming to scale the building from nowhere, and they shuffled away, but said nothing.

She pushed her way through to an elevator on the opposite end of the wallway and stepped inside.

“You are in the elevator?” Takemura asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Just stepped in. Headed up.”

V’s hands were clammy as she held her bag to her chest, rubbing the wood of the handles worriedly.

“Oh, Goro,” V said suddenly. _“I didn’t hide his body.”_

“It is too late now, V,” he said solemnly. “We cannot worry about this. By the time they discover him, we will be finished and gone.”

“Sorry I didn’t do better,” she said.

“It is no matter, V,” he said, and then gasped lightly all of a sudden. “V,” he called through her earpiece. “Oda is speaking with someone! I will patch you into their conversation. It is coming from within Hanako-sama’s float.”

 _“Security tonight is less than nothing!”_ a familiar voice – Oda – spoke angrily. _“This glamour event was a boisterous mistake of hubris. Hanako-sama should not have come.”_

 _“Know your place, Sandayu,"_ a gruff, mechanical second voice said. _“You are not in command here.”_

 _“And you are?”_ Oda scoffed. _“This is a development to me, then. You come here and think that you are in charge? Yorinobu-”_

 _“Yorinobu calls to my council like none other,”_ the second voice said in force _. “And you will hold your tongue, slave.”_

The call cut with a sharp grit of electronic sound, and V cringed. “What was that about?”

“It means that Oda is here,” Takemura said gravely. “It means that you must watch yourself carefully, V.”

The elevator chimed and the doors opened to reveal Johnny pacing outside. V stepped towards him.

**_‘Adam fucking Smasher.’_ **

“The guy who killed you?” V asked, watching him walk back and forth in front of her, his body imbued with frustrated rage. She could feel it.

_‘That’s who that fucker, Oda, was talking to on the phone. Why the fuck is he here?’_

“He was there the day I stole the Relic,” V said. “I think Yorinobu must be hiding behind his protection.”

 _‘Fucking fantastic.’_ Johnny threw his hands to the air. _‘V, you’ve gotta find this guy. And when you do, I’ll be ready. When you do, I’m gonna kill him.’_

V shook her head worriedly. “I don’t think we’re really prepared to go up against somebody that strong, Johnny. I can’t promise anything.”

_‘Now you fucking sound just like him. Takemura. ‘Can’t promise anything’, my ass. V, this is the only thing I ask. I want that fucker dead in the fucking ground.’_

“Okay, _fine_. Johnny, I promise that whenever we find Adam Smasher, I’ll let you do whatever you want. But right now, we have to keep moving. We’re running out of time. Hanako’s float will be here any minute.”

Stepping away from him and forging a path through the crowds of people to the right to find a yellow maintenance ladder, she climbed up carefully, her wooden sandals clacking hollowly against the ladder’s rungs.

At the top, she made her way over more air conditioning units and found herself at the footbridge which crossed precariously over the street to the other side. There was only a thin sheet of metal for a bridge, and nothing below. She swallowed thickly her nerves that were bubbling over.

Walking towards it and facing out over the gap, she closed her eyes and tried not to think about it. She only managed to take a few careful steps out before one of metal sheets gave way and fell down instantly towards the streets below, disappearing from view.

“Oh, god,” she said, heaving a breath of fear and stepping back as quickly as she could. “I almost fell.”

 _‘V, this is a dumbass idea,’_ Johnny said, leaning on the railing which overlooked the path that crossed the road. _‘Thinkin’ this is just one fuckin’ thing after the other. Takemura is not on your side, V.’_

She backed up all the way to the wall opposite the bridge and Johnny watched her.

 _‘You’re not jumping this,’_ he said. _‘You’re kidding me.’_

“No choice,” she said, and took the distance at a run, throwing herself as fast as she could to the other side and landing just barely on the edge, grasping onto the opposite railing to hold herself in place.

Her heart thumped in her ears and she breathed in and out heavily, trying to catch her breath. She continued on, feeling like she was flying now through an unreality.

She dropped down onto a lower landing and then opened the floor’s emergency exit, slipping through it onto the concrete below.

“The next sniper is but a few floors down, V,” Takemura said. “There are many Arasaka bots around you. Please take care not to be seen. I need you alive, V. Take your time as best you can while still making haste.”

She stepped back outside and the wind caught her in a swoop, to which she focused on grounding herself out in the open air. She crouched beside a railing and looked down to see a scattering of bots floating out all around her, scanning the crowds with a sheer red light.

She kept her head low as she proceeded downwards across multiple layers of scaffolding scattered between two buildings.

Jumping down as best she could while avoiding the bots, she dropped down onto a large generator and watched carefully as an Arasaka guardsman knelt against the railing below her.

Lowering herself carefully down, she slipped through the sliding door at his side and made her way through the halls towards the second sniper, all the while avoiding the guards scattered around.

Coming up behind him where he was positioned at a window within a covered hallway bridge, she retrieved the second dose of tranquilizer and stabbed it into his neck. He swung his arms out and hit her with his gun, knocking her to the floor, but ultimately went down, crushing her with his body. She shuffled out from beneath him and replaced the box in her bag again.

“V!” Takemura called. “It is Oda again! I will patch you in.”

The conversation came through as she was climbing the next set of stairs towards her continued goal, keeping low to remain out of sight of the armored guards.

 _“I will not sit by while Hanako-sama’s safety is jeopardized,”_ Oda said. There was rustling in the background of the call which came through staticky.

 _“Oda,”_ Smasher said, _“your_ _overreaction will be your undoing. Yorinobu has not given you license to act; do not leave your position.”_

_“Your hesitation to protect our ward is of great concern, Smasher.”_

_“And your need to prove your mettle in battle will be your fall, fool.”_

_“I will not have it!”_ Oda said loudly, the sound shrill in V’s ear piece. _“There are intruders in the parade. This is what I said would happen. I am going no matter what you say.”_

The call cut out.

“V,” Takemura said quickly. “You must finish soon. We do not know what they are aware of, and it is likely our position has already been compromised. You are doing well. Remarkably so. We will be finished before we know it.”

Making her way carefully through the building and climbing across treacherous amounts of makeshift workers' paths, she jumped and scurried and ducked and scuffled along the most dangerous free-climbing she had ever experienced in her life, all the while following Takemura's directions as he spoke them into her ear.

"V," he said. "The final sniper is just above you, on the walkway."

She climbed above and stepped carefully forward, holding herself close to the building and keeping her head low as she approached the footbridge towards the final sniper.

“V, take care here so far out in the open,” Takemura said. “I can see you now. Which means that others may also.”

She made quick work of the ladder to her right and climbed up onto the landing, crawling to peer into the building where the last sniper was positioned. He had multiple mines scattered around him, and she disabled them from outside with her Kiroshis.

She retrieved the last syringe from her bag and stepped over the opening into the room and came up behind him, pressing it into his neck and pushing him down carefully.

“Alright,” she said, stepping back up from the body. “Last one down.”

“This is good news,” he said. “But we now have another hurdle.”

“Another one?” she asked, returning the syringe to the box and placing it in her bag for the last time.

“It is a Netrunner,” he said. “She is just a short way away from you. Continue into the building at your side and make your way down to her. She is sitting in an unfinished apartment room, with a high ceiling. She is attempting to overwrite the malware we installed on Hanako-sama’s float and is intercepting my control of the security systems. You must stop her.”

“Got it,” she said, already heading towards the double-doors at the end of the bridge. “On my way there now.” She laughed lightly. "This didn't take long at all."

She rushed through the next building and passed through the corridors to find an elevator with see-through metal sliding doors. They opened as she approached and she pressed the button to go down.

Arriving at a floor below, she hurried outside again to find that Hanako’s float had arrived, its presence made clear by the enormous dragon at its back. The most beautiful singing V had ever heard called out to the sky and she felt for moments that she had crossed into a different world.

Though she could not linger, as the Relic caused a surge in her head and she stumbled to the ground, grabbing her head and faltering in her steps. 

Regaining herself, she walked down a near hallway and through a set of sliding glass doors into the apartment.

She passed into the room to find the Netrunner sitting by the large, two-story windows all across one wall, hooked up to a huge arrangement of machines.

She stepped carefully up behind the woman sitting upon the floor, laptop beside her, and grasped the plug at the back of the woman’s head. She yanked it from where it was attached.

“And that’s that,” V said, dropping the wires from her hand to the floor and stepping back. The woman would be trapped in the Net, and would not be able to react.

To V's right, a sudden flash of red struck her and exploded in motion at her side. A sound of injured surprise found her as she swung her body away from the sudden attack.

A slight burn appeared on her right wrist where she had been struck and she instinctively grabbed hold of it.

Oda stood before her where she was on the floor, two red mantis blade lasers spread out from his arms as he rushed towards her, dressed in a black armored samurai suit, face covered in a digital menpo.

 _“Oh, **fuck me…”**_ Her purse slid from her arm and fell to the floor of the room as she dodged to avoid his downward swing at her. She scrambled to get on her feet and back away as quickly as possible. _“Of course, you’d be here now!”_

She pressed against her earpiece to connect through the line to Takemura again, but there was relative radio silence coming from the other side. She tapped it a few times to get confirmation that it was still connected, but nothing was getting through.

“Goro, things aren’t looking good.” V ran through the plastic sheets hanging from the scaffolding scattered across the room, ducking beneath and around them as she frantically spoke into her ear-piece to her companion. “Goro, Oda’s here. Oda’s here and I don’t know if I can do this. Goro, please. Goro. Goro, _fucking answer me!_ Tell me you’re okay!”

“Takemura could not face his former apprentice?” Oda called out into the room, his voice amplified and distorted by the digital samurai mask he wore. “He sends the girl in his place? Then he has fallen farther than I could ever have imagined. You will not harm Hanako-sama, tonight.”

V quieted herself and gave up on the earpiece, ducking behind a wall and pressing herself up against it. Her chest felt painfully fearful and she tried her best to calm her nerves.

“Where are you hiding, little thing?”

V pulled out both pistols from the hidden gun holsters beneath her dress and held them up. She kicked her zori shoes off where she stood which left her in her socks and remained momentarily to catch her breath. Never had she faced such an overpowered fight before, and she closed her eyes for the briefest moment to regain composure at what was to come.

She ran out from cover and caught him facing backwards away from her, and quickly unloaded a round into his back as fast as she could, though he reacted very little.

He turned quickly and aimed towards her, shooting in her direction with his own gun. A scattering of bullets rushed out and she lay flat down on the ground to avoid them and then stood quickly and ran behind cover again. She reloaded her pistols as fast as possible with the spare ammo she had loaded into hidden pockets all over herself.

“You will not win this, girl,” he yelled. “You should have left this city when you had the chance. Now you will die here. And Takemura will go with you.”

She jumped to climb up on higher ground and threw her leg up to leverage herself to get there. Scrambling to her feet, she held her pistols in both hands as tightly as possible and took careful steps forward, looking everywhere for any signs of red.

 _“Don’t **fucking** come near me!”_ she yelled.

 _‘Don’t let him know where you are, idiot!’_ Johnny said in her head.

She jumped to a different platform and felt the air disturb behind her, to which she turned quickly and Oda rushed at her before she could react. She fell backwards onto the floor below again and all the air rushed from her as she landed harshly on her back.

Oda laughed. “You are weak,” he said, pulling a katana from his back and jumping down to her. “But I will not go easy on even an unknowing foe.”

She gasped in pain and pushed herself back to her feet with a stumble, one pistol dropped and one still in hand. She ran back into a corner of the room all the while unloading a few bullets in his general direction as she did so.

“You hide like you are a pathetic waste of space,” he said. “Surely Takemura would have trained you better than this. The apprentice he has found in you was surely misplaced. You are not capable. You are not strong.”

V said nothing, and held her pistol to her body, calming her breathing. Sounds of plastic shuffling made her hands shake. 

A hand grabbed her and dragged her out of hiding and threw her roughly to the floor, her pistol falling at her side. Oda stepped over her.

“Only a bitch could run with such a deterministic façade of strength.” He stepped forward, clearly playing with her at his feet as he could very well have already ended her. “A woman cannot best me in battle. Do you think you are able? Takemura surely does not keep you around for much.”

His foot crushed into her chest and she felt she could barely breathe. Her right arm fumbled around her on the floor to grab hold of the dropped pistol and tightened it as best she could within her fingers. She carefully grasped it, turned it towards the back of Oda's left calf, which was crushing her, and pulled the trigger.

He screamed something she didn’t understand and fumbled away from her a few feet, to which she flipped over and scrambled along the floor to get away, one hand never leaving the pistol and the other pushing her back to a standing position.

She turned briefly to see Oda stumbling around in rage on his shot leg, slightly bent to regain his own composure. He looked up at her and she ran away, dodging around the corner and traipsing through the plastic curtains again to find somewhere he wouldn’t know she was.

“You wear a dress of my country and yet you disgrace it like a filthy street whore,” he yelled to the room. _“Does he fuck you, whore?”_

She reloaded her pistol where she stood, all the while becoming aware again of the pain in her back from her fall which called to her as a phantom ache. That would surely come back to haunt her once the adrenaline was down.

 _“Where are you!?”_ he screamed, voice cracking with strain.

V ran out from where she had stopped and aimed as fast as possible to find where he was standing, hoping uselessly that he would still be out there, but he was not.

She fell to the ground, being pushed from behind, and scraped across the floor, all the while crying in pain as she was forced to her knees and had her face pressed into the ground. He stepped on her prosthetic leg at its very edge where her real thigh began and pinched her skin beneath the porcelain. She cried out from the pain and her head rushed. He kept her in place while he pushed her head down with one of his hands.

“You were stupid to come here,” he said angrily, shoving her down as hard as possible. “Takemura has led you astray, lamb. And now you will die here with him.”

He held up his right arm, mantis blade shooting out at his side, and V impulsively reached out her own right arm to try and gain traction, frantically throwing her grasp behind her to get at him in any possible way she could.

And then, she felt pure white.

The pressure on her back subsided and she felt weightless. She lay there for a moment, assured she was dead, and then rolled over onto her back. Staring up at the ceiling, she reached up with her hands to grasp at her chest to try and loosen the ribbon around her waist which was constricting her breathing.

Except, she couldn’t do that.

“Oh no…” she said, voice nothing but a whispering emptiness. “No, no, no, no, no…”

She turned to her right side, crushing against her shoulder on the floor, her upper-arm laying out flat before her eyes, blood spreading across the area in small waves. Starting at the place just above her elbow…

There was nothing below. Her arm lay severed several feet away. 

Oda stood overtop her, seeming slightly stunned at his own self and what had occurred in a blur of mere seconds. The two of them looked to her arm where it lay motionless away from her.

She stood from the ground in a moment of her only ability left, and grabbed Oda’s katana, now dropped to the floor, swinging it out as wildly as possible, barely able to hold onto it with now only her left hand at play. She hit and sliced from every possible angle she could come from, but Oda just backhanded it away.

She had nothing left to do, so she threw her body towards him and he stumbled to the ground in a moment of shock. She pushed her left hand onto his head and shoved his mask off, and then smashed her fist into his face again and again and again, his hair a mess before her as she lay into him with anything she had left. 

With all the strength she could amass in her frame, she channeled every last anger, every last wish, every last heartbreak into the force of her left hand’s hold against his neck. Flashes of silver and flesh interwoven; it was unclear who truly was in control in that moment.

_‘V!’_

Her body was ringing. She felt like she was small, so small she had disappeared within herself and felt like a memory of her own mind.

_‘V!’_

Liquid streamed down her face but she did not know whether they were tears or blood. She coughed through the wetness she felt on her cheeks and screamed at Oda as she crushed him.

_‘Don’t do this, V.’_

She pushed her body against him to keep him down, and used the only hand she had left to grab her pistol from the ground, to which she unloaded multiple shots into Oda’s arms to disable his mantis blades functionality, all while struggling to keep him grappled with her legs.

Gun still in-hand, she rolled off of him onto the concrete floor and lay next to his body, both of them heaving and groaning in shared agony.

She stared up at the high ceilings of the room they lay there in, two people torn down to their bare minimum with nothing left to their name but pure rage and exhaustion.

_‘V, let’s go.’_

Johnny appeared before her, his silver hand outstretched for the taking.

She struggled to regain herself, flat on her back and mind elsewhere, so Johnny reached down to her hand of his own accord to pull her roughly to his side, that silver arm stronger than the entirety of her body.

_‘V, we’ve gotta fuckin’ go. Like now.’_

“Hold on,” she said weakly, and she didn’t know if it was in her head or out loud, but the throbbing adrenaline in her brain was making everything move like a surrealist painting and words were failing her.

She knelt frantically to the floor to find her discarded bag and pushed it open with the fingers of her one hand, left it sitting there, and collected the guns she had used and tossed them inside of it quickly. She grabbed hold of the handles and pulled it over her shoulder as best she could.

She momentarily looked to her right to see blood dripping from her side and cringed, a wave of nauseous dizziness appearing in her throat and she wanted to gag from just the thought of it all.

At his place on the ground, Oda reached to grab his katana again, but she kicked it away from his grasp and bent down to pick it up for herself. She pointed it towards him, left hand firmly on the grip as best she was able, and slowly circled around him where he lay, never allowing the katana’s point to leave him.

“I’ll be…fucking…taking this, thank you,” she said. “Don’t follow me…” She heaved heavily and choked back the stabbing pain of her arm. “Don’t you dare…follow me, Oda. If you follow me…” She stumbled. “If you follow me…I’ll…I’ll kill you.” She heaved out a heavy breath. “I’ll fucking kill you.”

She staggered backwards, facing towards him as she backed out of the room, pushing through the double-doors leading from the room with her back and then turning to run. She tucked the katana into the red belt of her yukata, though struggling to do so, and weakly sprinted at as best a pace she could manage down the levels of the building away from Takemura’s apprentice.

She reached a metal scaffolding edge and sat down at it, cringing as she moved what was left of her arm around, and scooted to drop down to the next level, landing badly and fumbling on her feet. She fell on her left hand and pushed back up slowly, grinding her teeth as she did so.

_‘V, c’mon.’_

Johnny appeared before her and held out his hands. She pushed her left arm into them and let him leverage her back onto her feet.

He ushered her down an arched hallway and pushed the two of them through a set of doors which led back out to street-level. A news AV was hovering about forty feet away, Gillean Jordan giving an update on the parade's attack.

V's hand flew to her ear piece and she knelt on the ground in front of the building.

“Goro…” She fumbled on the spot, unable to properly maintain her balance. She leaned her forehead against the ground, hand held loose and weak to her ear to keep the ear piece in. “Goro, something…something…really bad…h-happened.”

No sound came through.

“Goro…are you…still there?”

V slumped into a laying position on the sidewalk but Johnny caught her by the shoulders.

_‘Don’t lay down, V! We’ve gotta go!’_

She let her bag drop to the ground, it hitting with a clatter at the three guns stored inside, and attempted to open it.

“The button, I…the button, I can’t…I can’t get it. My fingers can’t…can’t grab it.”

Johnny knelt down at her side and made quick work of the bag to be opened, and V dove her hand weakly inside to grab her phone. She thumbed as best she could with one hand to her contacts and began a call to Takemura.

It rang, and rang, and rang.

“Goro…” she said quietly. “Goro, _please…”_

A wave of faint agony fell over her and her left arm, too weak to hold steady where it was, dropped to her side and released her phone to the ground. Johnny knelt to grab it and shoved it into the bag at her side.

_‘Kid, we’ve gotta fucking move. Like now.’_

Her cellphone buzzed and she reached back into her bag to grab it, the button undone still.

______

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Come to the abandoned apartment complex in the area known as Vista Del Rey_ [10:53 PM]

 _Room 303_ [10:53 PM]

 _knock four times_ [10:53 PM]

 _And ensure you are not flolowed_ [10:54 PM]

 _followed_ [10:54 PM]

 _DELETE THESE MESSAGES_ [10:54 PM]

______

She struggled to thumb through the message thread as they poured in one after the other, and was unable to type back a response of her own, attempting to piece together a few letters into words, but failing to construct anything legible.

 _‘Just forget it, V,’_ Johnny said, taking the phone and slipping it into her bag. _‘We know what we need to know, now let’s fucking go.’_

“You’re right,” she said. “We’ll…we’ll go.”

He pulled her up again and steadied her, holding her in the grasp of his right arm strewn beneath the crooks of her shoulders, her left arm over his back.

“It’s about a half-mile away,” V said. “Only a…only a couple blocks.” She swallowed harshly. “I’ve been by there before. Didn’t…didn’t know he was…he was living there…though.” Tears welled in her eyes and she didn’t understand what she was sad about. Probably everything. “If I had…if I had known that’s where…where he was…I could’ve…I could’ve…”

 _‘V, now’s not the time for this, we need to move,’_ Johnny said, essentially dragging her down the street towards their intended direction. Whatever she actually looked like in reality to the general passerby was most certainly a strange and disturbing sight to behold, this bloody girl fumbling down the street, at war with her own self.

Johnny – V – Johnny – V – she did not know who was in control as they stumbled through the nighttime streets of the city, crossing roads with busy traffic and going through the motions as she tried to remember where exactly to go to get to the apartment complex. There were times when she fell to her knees and Johnny pulled her back to his side again, leaning her against him, even if he wasn’t truly there at all.

They reached the complex in a matter of about ten minutes, and Johnny practically dragged her up the winding staircases to ascend to the floor with Room 303.

Before the door, the stood, and with all she could muster, she reached to the door with her left fist and knocked, though it was barely a whisper of a tap. Johnny, at her side, tutted impatiently and instead rapped four times with his silver fist against the door.

After a pause of a solid five or so seconds, the door shot open and a firm hand pulled V inside, door closing again behind her.

She fumbled at the grasp of this person – _Takemura_ – as he held her there steadfastly beneath his hand. He looked into her eyes, checking for signs of who knows what, and said simply, “I am glad you have made it. I feared they caught you.”

She breathed heavily and struggled with speech. “Goro, I…” She swallowed though her throat felt closed. She tried to bite down on her bottom lip to quell the pain but was too weak to do so. “Goro.”

She pulled away from him, his grasp loosening, and she held out the stub of her right arm to him.

“V, no…” he said quietly, stepping back and then forward to her almost instantly. He held his hands out in shock but did not touch her. “Oh, V.”

“What do…” She was staring at the floor, at him, at the door – nothing and everything at the same time. “What do I…do?”

He reached out towards her and placed a soft hand upon the right shoulder, using the other to pull up the tattered pieces of the yukata that remained on that side. She leaned into his grip, barely able to stand.

He placed his right hand on her cheek and made her look at him, checking her eyes again, though this time for signs of life and not signs of betrayal.

“You have lost a lot of blood,” he said, turning her face in his palm. “Your skin is sickly pallid. We need to do something before you bleed out.”

“I’m…I’m…”

“It is okay, V,” he said, ushering her away from the door and towards a couch on the opposite side of the room. “Here, let me help you.”

He pushed her gently onto the couch and kept her sitting up so that she couldn’t lay down and fall asleep.

“What happened, V?”

“Oda,” she said, sniffling harshly, face puffy from crying and red with blood. “He had these…these red mantis blades. Like lights. I’ve never seen anything like them before. I made a mistake in the fight and h-he got me.”

Takemura halted in examining her arm and looked to her very seriously. “But you won.”

“Yeah…” she nodded at him, trying to affirm confidence in her own self. “You’re…you’re right.”

He splashed lukewarn water over her arm from a nearby pot and she whimpered, tears falling freely.

“Does Oda live?” he asked.

“Y-yes…” She nodded again. “Yes, he’s…he’s alive.”

He held her face and she leaned to his touch. His eyes were full of life. “You lost an arm and yet you spared his life. You are too forgiving for your own survival.”

“Mm-hm.”

“It is lucky Oda used the blades he did.” He turned the stub of her arm in his hands, then stood to retrieve a small medical kid from the bathroom near them. “They have instantly cauterized the wound. Should he have been wielding traditional mantis blades, you would most certainly have died already.”

“Lucky…me.”

He returned to her and knelt in front of her, pulling the yukata down over her shoulder and leaving her bare on one side. He opened the medical kit and shuffled through it for supplies.

She looked out to the room while Takemura performed emergency treatment on her, dripping alcohol on the wound and dabbing it with sterile cloths.

A woman sat, legs crossed, in a chair at the opposite side of the room by the windows. V could only just barely see her through a sheer curtain partition in the room.

“Is that…is that…” she asked.

“Hanako,” Takemura said, turning momentarily to look at the other woman and then returning to V. “Yes.”

“Oh…that’s…that’s insane…” V said, lightly raising her left hand in a lame wave towards the woman opposite. “Hey,” she said weakly, though Hanako did not respond.

V closed her eyes and leaned on Takemura’s shoulder as he got close to bandage her arm up with wrapping from the kit. The pain was so intense that she could barely feel it anymore, her body unable to take much more suffering.

“Can you still hear me, V?”

From where her face was pressed into him, she asked, “What was that?”

He pulled away from her leaning and ripped the sleeve off of the left side of his shirt and began carefully wrapping it around the end of her arm and around her neck as a makeshift sling. She winced at the touch and squeezed her face to distract from the pain, sound evidence of immense torturing falling from her lips as she struggled to remain conscious through the exhausting slices of pain.

“No,” she said, “not your…not your white shirt. You always look…so handsome in it.”

Takemura chuckled exasperatedly and a smile meshed with the intense worry painted upon his face. “V, you are lightheaded,” he said, tying the now blood-stained cloth as neatly as possible. “Perhaps hold your thoughts.”

A horrible throbbing pressed through her arm and she reached her left hand over to hold against where he was causing waves of hurt to overtake her. He held her hand with one of his own to keep her from disturbing his medical aid. Her left arm fell limp and returned to her side.

“I’m gonna…” She heaved heavily. “I’m gonna miss that white shirt.”

He laughed lightly again, though V could tell his true face was one of focus and concern. “Only you, V, could laugh in the face of death. And do not worry about my shirt. I have many more.”

He finished his work and stood, holding his hand out for her to grab and helping her to her feet, not releasing her hand from his own as he checked her eyes again to ensure full consciousness.

She looked down at herself and ran her left hand over the fabric of her outfit, splashed with blood on nearly every inch, and torn on the right side where Oda had cut through.

“Sorry, I…I think I ruined the dress.”

“Oh, V…”

V looked to Hanako where she sat and left Takemura’s side to approach her in a somewhat dazed bout of exhausted forwardness.

“Hanako…I was…there the day…the day that Saburo died,” she said as she walked over, taking a seat across from Hanako. She readjusted her position in the seat, arm throbbing in the makeshift sling. “Everything that Goro has told you…is true. Yorinobu killed him. I promise you…please…you have to believe us.”

Hanako expressed the slightest hint of a judgmental smirk, though nearly imperceptible. “And why is that?” she asked. Her accent hinted at a European education.

“The Relic that…that Yorinobu stole from Tokyo?” V pointed at her head. “I’ve got it…I’ve got it right here. I couldn’t have that if I…if I wasn’t there that day, at Konpeki.”

Hanako tutted. “A weak argument.”

The door to the room banged with the fast rapping of a fist upon the wood. Takemura and V both looked to the source of the sound, though Hanako barely regarded it.

“I will check the door,” Takemura said sternly, looking to V. “Stay here.”

“No, Goro,” V said, pushing to her feet and following where he had begun to walk away. “I’ll…I’ll get it. You stay...with Hanako.”

He made a move to protest, but V pushed on him lightly with her left hand to get him to step aside.

She crossed the room and pulled the door open, looking out into the hall, though finding no one. She closed it again and turned at the sudden explosion of missiles that sprang into the room from the windows, exploding the plywood which had covered them prior. Stone and wood flooded the room as soldiers engaged the room in a drove of a dozen or more from an AV pulled beside the hole blown through the wall.

Takemura jumped to cover Hanako but he was thrown from her by Adam Smasher as he stalked heavily into the room. V ran towards them but couldn’t make it in time.

Everything blasted in her mind like a gunshot, and it reminded her both of the day she had stepped on that landmine four years prior and of the day Dexter DeShawn had unloaded a bullet into her skull. The world seemed to end just as fast as it kept moving, both static and dynamic at the same time, in the same place.

She found herself on the floor, looking up through a hole into the room she had just been standing in, dust surrounding her and clouding her vision. It stung her eyes so she closed them.

_‘V?’_

“Johnny?” she asked faintly.

_‘V, we’ve gotta go.’_

She was pulled to her feet and launched into Johnny’s chest. He brushed her off and steadied her with both his hands on her shoulders. She winced at his touch and he instinctively hesitated over her injury at the ready if she needed help. _‘Don’t let your arm touch any debris.’_

“Where’s…Takemura?” she asked worriedly, looking around at the destruction surrounding them. She winced as she couldn’t hold back from reaching to touch her wound with her left hand. The shreds of Takemura’s white shirt wrapped around her were stained nearly completely red.

 _‘Fucking dead, probably,’_ Johnny said, waving her towards him. _‘Let’s go.’_

“I can’t leave him,” she said, crossing out into the hallway.

_‘Jesus, fuck, V. We don’t have time for this. Let’s go. Now.’_

“I’m not…I’m not leaving without him. Get out of my way if you aren’t going to help, Johnny.”

She crouched down through a hole blown in a wall nearby and crawled over to where she could find the stairs again. She ran through the shield of the flares and smoke bombs littering the hallways, finally reaching the staircase and all but crawling up them. Johnny appeared in front of her.

_‘V, he’s beyond your help, we have to fucking go.’_

“Get out of my way,” she said and pushed against his legs with her shoulder as she crawled, one-armed, up the stairs. Gunfire and sirens filled the building and she could hear nothing else.

At the correct floor, she stood and moved through the smoke again, floodlights blinding her as she ran down the hall back the way she had first come.

She stepped into the room to find a scattering of soldiers within and frantically shook the mini revolver she'd had hidden on her left arm loose, to which it fell to the floor. She picked it up and immediately fired out six indiscriminatory shots wherever they would land. Takemura ran to her side and grabbed her, pulling her from the room and out into the hallway.

 _“V,’_ he said frantically, hand gripping her shoulder as they stumbled down the hall together, a mess of limbs and bodies. “You should not have returned for me. You have placed yourself in even more immeasurable danger.”

“I lost an arm for you today,” she said, wiping the back of her left hand over her forehead. “I’m not…I’m not leaving you now. It can’t all be for nothing.”

He placed his hand lightly over her cheek and looked at her, her face covered in soot from the collapse and blood from her arm which she’d unknowingly spread across her skin. “You are the most incredible person I have met in many years.”

“This really isn’t the time to…to blow each other, Goro,” she said, stepping away from his hand and holding more tightly to the now empty revolver in her hand. “I’m about to pass out any minute. We’ve gotta go.”

“Right,” he said, pulling a pistol from his belt and holding it out for her, which she accepted gratefully by dropping her revolver and taking the offered gun instead. He replaced two hands on the assault rifle in his arms. “Let us go.”

“Run and gun, Goro,” she said, holding the pistol he had given to her weakly in her hand as she leaned against him. “We’ll just…run and gun.”

They shuffled as fast as possible through a series of rooms to their right, dropping down through a hole in the floor, with Takemura's great help to do so, and followed a series of red flares scattered by the Arasaka soldiers, clearly indicating a path through the lower levels of the building to the exit. 

There were very few blocking their way to the front door and she could feel her grip on reality slowing further and further. Takemura had to all but carry her at that point, picking her up and holding her on his back as she began to lose consciousness. 

"Do not fall asleep, V!" he said, moving as fast as possible through the halls as he desperately attempted to locate the exit, his arms no longer holding any gun as he held her to him with his hands beneath the backs of her knees.

He carried her down a flight of stairs and then said, "There!" and ran towards what could only be the entrance.

The Relic surged in her head, and upon Takemura pushing the doors open, her left arm loosened from its hold around him and she crashed to the ground, unable even to subdue her fall with her left hand.

_“V!?”_

She closed her eyes.

_“V!?”_


	8. Lonely Is My Hoping, Empty Is My Sweet Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has been reading; it means the world to me! Your comments are wonderful and I appreciate them so much. 
> 
> _Trigger Warning this chapter for brief discussions of sexual violence. Not a scene, just conversations thereof._

C H A P T E R E I G H T

_Lonely Is My Hoping, Empty Is My Sweet Thing_

_“Cherry blossom…are you awake?”_

_“V?”_

_“V?”_

Everything was pale white and bright when she opened her eyes. Had she died? Was this what it felt like to be gone?

For days, there had been flashes of blurred hallways and bodies donned in light blue gloves and sterile white masks. Metal instruments entered her field of vision in hazy, frantic movements, passing to her right side and fighting a battle against the blood that rushed to that area of her chest. She could barely keep her eyes open during those days, her left arm reaching out to touch and being held by someone she could barely see. Her right…well…precious little remained there to be desired. But in her cloudy daydreams, that phantom arm could reach a mile.

_“V?”_

Someone was speaking in a quiet voice. V opened her left eye, then her right, both of them sore and unused to having free movement. The taste of having recently thrown up lingered in her throat, though she did not remember having done it.

She instinctively reached up to her mouth, a bout of nauseousness befalling her, and she turned her head where she lay to see an IV trailing down a clear plastic tube and entering the inside of her left arm.

She reached out with her right hand to touch it, and…

And there was an arm. There was an arm to reach with, and a hand too.

But it was not _her_ arm. Was not _her_ hand.

The person in the room with her stood a few feet away, their own hands clasped politely in front of them. It was a man. And this man was dressed in a black suit.

“Takemura?”

She blinked to try and adjust her vision, clearly revealing the man with whom she had escaped near death with. 

“What did you call me?” she asked, her words slow and tired, barely able to pass through her lips at all.

“I called you V,” he said, taking a hesitant yet clearly caring step forward. “Are you alright?”

V touched the IV in her arm and looked to him, then around at her surroundings.

She was laying in a modest hospital room; one she did not remember entering. There was a large, expansive window on the wall to her right, looking out over the cityscape, and on the left wall, furthest from her, the door, closed. Opposite her bed, there was a painting of the ocean, and below it, a wooden table covered in a scattering of different items which her blurry eyes struggled to make out.

“Where are we?” she asked. “I don’t remember coming here.”

“We are in the Medical Center located in Sector B5," he informed, speaking slowly and concisely.

V gave him a confused look and shook her head. "I don't..."

“We are in what they call ‘City Center’. Downtown,” he clarified, and she nodded.

“And what are we doing there?” she asked. 

“You required immediate medical care,” he said, gesturing towards her somewhat hesitantly, she supposed in the event that her memory of what had happened was not present.

“I can’t afford this place,” she said, blinking a few more times to wake up fully, and slowly coming into her senses. “I can’t…I have to go.” She sat up in the bed, cringing somewhat as she pushed on this right arm that was not hers. Her throat was dry and hurting. “I’m…I have to leave. I don’t have Trauma Care; I can’t stay here.”

She reached over to pull out her IV, but Takemura stepped quickly forward and stopped her from doing so, patting her hand away gently. “That will not be necessary,” he said, and she slumped back onto the bed, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Why?” she asked.

“Everything is already taken care of,” he said. “You need only to recover.”

“Taken care of?” she asked confusedly, looking around. “By who?”

“Hanako-sama is handling everything.”

V slouched down even further into herself. “Great,” she said. “Just…great.” She looked out the window, arms crossed.

Takemura took a seat at the end of the bed, reaching out slightly to put his hand on her leg beneath the covers, but she shuffled them away.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

She shrugged.

From the foot of the bed, Takemura picked up the remains of V’s yukata, now washed and folded. He held it towards her. “I have brought this for you. A memento of your bravery.”

“I don’t mean any offense,” V said, “but I don’t want it.” She pushed his hands away. “I don’t want to remember what happened.”

“This is understandable,” he said, placing it back where it lay prior. “I will keep it safe, though, in the case that you change your mind.”

V watched out the window. By the calm and sparse amount of sun, it was likely early morning.

“Do you know when I’ll be able to leave?” she asked.

“You can go now, if you wish," he said, standing from the bed.

“Great,” V said, sitting up carefully but wincing at the dull pain that came through her back. Takemura stepped forward at the sight of her struggle, but she waved him off.

“I hope that you might stay, though,” he said. “We can protect you. But only if you are with us. Only if you agree to work alongside Hanako-sama.”

V resettled, giving up her attempt to stand and leave. She crossed her arms over her chest but then unfolded them at the sight of her right arm. Tears flushed upon her and she wanted to run away. She turned her head from Takemura, but he clearly noticed what she had done.

“How do you like your new arm?” he asked, reaching out slightly but not touching her. “It is the best that Arasaka have to offer. It is not even released to the public yet.”

The place where once had been flesh was now matte white metal, fully articulated and bendable at every human joint, lined across its surface with golden adornments trailing into sakura flowers, the gold acting as branches.

She flexed her new hand and the way it moved like fluid was almost too human in its nonhumanity. She clenched her fist and released it, watching the tiny imperceptible mechanisms at play beneath her newfound metallic limb.

She faced away from Takemura, hiding her arm beneath the blankets of the bed and focusing on a single spot on the wall to will herself not to cry.

“It’s alright,” she said flatly.

“How does it feel?” Takemura asked, and she knew he was trying to distract her, to do anything to make her feel better. “Each part is fully aligned with your nervous system to retain feeling and control.”

He reached his hands out in gesture of her arm and she held it up to him. He took it gently into his hands and ran his thumbs down her inner forearm. “Can you feel this?”

“Yes.”

“You weren’t conscious to choose what it looked like,” he said, the fingers of his hands trailing over the intricate golden and light pink lines travelling all along the arm. “I thought you might like this one, because it matches…well. You know.”

“It’s nice,” she said plainly, and he released her, taking a step back cautiously.

“They can replace your leg, if you would like. It is quite outdated.”

“No,” V said. “I like it the way it is.”

“You are sure?”

“I like it,” she said again, “the way it is.”

He placed his hand on her human arm and knelt at her side. She would not meet his eyes.

“V," he said. "Please communicate with me.”

She pulled her arm away and he let her fall from his grasp, standing again and taking a few courteous steps back, clasping his hands in front of himself.

V shuffled in the bed and turned on her right side to face the window, peering over her shoulder to look at him as inconspicuously as she could.

“Could you leave me alone for a while?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said, bowing his head lightly.

He made a move to leave the room, but stopped when he looked towards the table opposite where V lay. He gestured towards it, placing his left-hand fingertips at its edge.

“Your personal effects are here,” he said. “On this table." He grasped a long katana which was placed among her things. "This is Oda's, I assume?" He ran his hand along the blade. "Yes, I would know it anywhere. I am sure he will be especially bitter at the loss of this. Ah, well." He replaced it on the table. "Hanako-sama has provided clothing for you to dress in when you are ready to leave.”

V turned at those words, looking to him with eyes a bit wider and mind a bit sharper.

“Hanako is here?” she asked.

“Ah,” he said, looking to the door behind him and then down to the floor. “She is not.”

“And where is she?” V asked.

“She is in a secure location.” He bowed his head slightly. “I shall return to her when I leave you here today. This is all you need to know.”

“Where is this ‘secure location’?”

“I cannot divulge this, V.”

“Fine, then,” she said, turning back over. “Will I see you again?”

“I do not know this, V.”

“Why not?”

“It will not be safe for us to remain in the company of one another.”

V rolled back over onto her back to look at him again. “I saw Hanako get taken away by Smasher."

“Yes,” he said. “This is true.”

“So how is she going to work with us?”

“Hanako may officially be in the custody of her brother, but she is an independent woman. And she has contacted me since with confirmation of her trust in us. We could not be here at this hospital if that were not true.”

“Why should I believe that?” V asked.

“Why would I lie, V?”

“I don’t know.”

She looked away again, down to the outline of her legs beneath the covers.

“Do not be upset, V.”

“I’m not upset,” she said, pushing herself to a seated position and swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. She grasped the sheets at her sides and slid to her feet to try to stand. “Just go, Takemura. I’m done talking.”

She stepped away from the bed on shaky legs and stumbled to the floor near instantly, her hands shooting out to stop herself.

_“V?”_ Takemura rushed to her side and knelt to help her up. “V, are you alright?”

She put her hands on his forearms and he helped her to stand again. “I-I feel lightheaded,” she said weakly. “Can you he-help me into the bathroom.”

One arm wrapped gently around her back to usher her forward and one holding her left hand, he walked her towards a door on the opposite end of the room, between the painting and windows, which led into a small, modest, but immaculately clean bathing room.

The room was ocean-themed, with light-blue walls adorned in shells and faux pearls, and a large window above the bath that faced the actual ocean far out in the distance. This design was meant to be comforting to patients, and V hated to admit that it was working. It was a beautiful bathroom, which may have been perhaps a strange compliment…but this was a bathroom only Arasaka’s level of money could buy. Beautiful was all V could think.

“Can you open the window?” V said. “It’s a bit hard to breathe.”

“Of course, V,” he said, leaning over the tub (which was bordering on the dramatic in its shell-shape, though V had to admit was still quite pretty) and unlatched the lock on the window and slid it open. A sweeping cool wind blew in near instantly, and V felt herself come to life a little more.

“Perhaps you should take a bath,” Takemura said. “It might help to relax your nerves and injuries.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and looked out the window, then to Takemura.

“O-okay,” she said, unable to meet his eyes.

He leaned to the tub and turned on the water, testing the temperature carefully until he found it had come to an acceptable warmth, and then stoppered the drain to let the water fill.

V reached to attempt to grab at the fabric of her dressing gown, though her arms were weak and she struggled to pull it off of herself.

“Can you help me?” she asked exhaustedly, dropping her arms back to her sides. “I-I can’t get this…stupid…dress…off.”

He did not hesitate, and stepped towards her at the immediate ready to offer aid as surely as she would need it. He was in bodyguard-mode, she could tell, because he was not hesitating at her needs, was not thinking twice. He was acting purely on what she required.

“Of course, V,” he said, gesturing for her to hold her arms up, to which he grasped the bottom of the dress and gently pulled it over her head. “I do not think the dress would like to be called stupid, V.”

She laughed lightly but quickly cut it off because she wasn’t ready to relinquish her friendship back to him yet. Certainly, he had done nothing personally wrong to her, but she had no one else to be frustrated at. There was no one else around to be there for her in her emotional aftermath.

She turned to the mirror and looked at her reflection. She was wearing underwear she did not recognize, and felt weary at the idea of having been pushed and prodded around like an object while she was unconscious.

Takemura placed his hands on her shoulders as she looked in the mirror. Her eyes were puffy and dark, her skin pale to death, her posture slumped.

“I will go now,” Takemura said, but V turned to him.

“Wait,” she said. “Could you help me take this off?”

She turned around, back to him, and placed her hand over the strap of her bra on her shoulder. “I can’t reach behind me to get the clasp.”

She did not feel his hands touch her skin at all – likely intentional – and yet the bra fell limp against her body and the tightness of it around her torso was released. Faced away from him, she let it fall, and replaced the cups of the bra with her arms wrapped across her chest.

Keeping one arm there, she used the other to shimmy out of her panties and tossed them with her feet into the corner near the tub. She hesitated there, faced away from him, and then said weakly, “Takemura…c-can you help me into the bath?”

“Of course, V.”

She didn’t care if he looked at her.

She was too tired to care. Too scared. Too exhausted and mentally hanging on the edge of repair. She did not care even when it was clear to her that he was seeing her body in a way in which he had not ever seen her, namely, the full presentation of her bare, prosthetic leg before him. Something that caused her great insecurity in that it invoked a sense of smallness within her which she did not want to give this man power over.

He would not look directly to her body, instead holding only her face with his eyes as he held her hands in his own and lowered her into the tub. She felt unworthy of the respect he appeared to hold her in.

“Would you like me to stay here with you?”

She wanted to say no. Wanted to send him a message that she couldn’t be so easily bought out by Arasaka with an expensive new arm. That she wouldn’t let them walk away from her with nary a scratch as if nothing had happened at all.

She was embarrassed to be seen in this way. Not from fear of a lack of beauty…but from fear of letting someone know her in a way that wasn’t whole. That wasn’t orchestrated for public consumption. He would see her here, lonely and defeated in that bath, and he would know her as only she knew her.

“Yes,” she said at last, reluctantly. “I don’t want to be alone.”

He placed his hand on her bare shoulder and her skin warmed to his touch; she hoped he would not notice her goosebumps, and if he did, would hopefully chock them up to the temperature of the water affecting her, or the cool breeze in the room.

His touch was a touch that said, _‘Here I am, I’ll help you feel clean, I’ll help make you whole again.’_

“You are not alone, V.”

“Feel pretty alone.”

“Valérie,” he said, holding her steadily and ensuring that eye-contact was made. “You are never alone.”

And she cried.

But she didn’t know if she cried from the fear of being known, or if she cried from the bittersweet sadness of accepting that anyone who would choose to know her like this would eventually have to say goodbye.

_Forever._

* * * * *

_‘This fuckin' Arasaka business is FUBAR and then some.’_

V returned home the following day of Takemura’s hospital visit to her, checking herself out even if it had not been medically advised. Women at the counter attempted to encourage her stay, but she brushed them off, her return home both pressing and necessary to her comfort. She did not wish to linger there any longer than she had to, even if it meant that her recovery at home would have been slower and more difficult.

V was laying in her bed beneath the covers and Johnny was sitting beside her, back against the far wall inside her little sleeping alcove. He was strumming an invisible guitar again.

“What’s FUBAR?” she asked, blankets pulled up tightly against her chin. She peered at him sleepily, and reached to rub at her eyes with her left fist, not raising her right hand out from its resting place.

_‘You don’t know?’_ he asked, brow quirking. _‘Guess.’_

She thought carefully, mind tired and eyes slightly closed. It was cozy beneath the covers where she lay.

“Hmm,” she said. “Funny…unicorns…behind…a…rodeo.”

He nodded, a slight grin pulling at the edge of his lips as he dropped the air guitar and crossed his arms over his chest. _‘Good guess.’_

“What is it actually?” she asked.

_‘Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.’_

“Tasteful,” she said.

_‘Like it?’_ he asked.

She nodded. “I think you’re right. Arasaka _is_ FUBAR and then some.”

_‘How’s your arm feeling?’_ he asked, gesturing towards her vaguely and looking out in the general direction of the couch across the room from them. He was a difficult man to pry true care from, but V knew that in his own way, he was trying.

She shuffled around and thought of the arm attached to her, its cool metal being warmed in its place beneath the blankets and close to her body.

“Getting better,” she said. “I guess."

_'That's good,'_ he said with an affirmative nod. 

The topic was dropped. 

V looked out to the room, thinking of the coolness out there that contrasted the warm under the covers. 

“Johnny, do you wanna hang out with me today?”

He quickly turned his gaze to her.

_‘What does that mean?’_ he asked suspiciously, and she pushed up from her laying position to sit upright, flopping her hands in front of her.

“I mean…I mean stick around, and not…disappear," she suggested. "We could do something fun!”

He furrowed his brow and gave her a cautious almost-smile. _‘Like what?’_

“We could go to the movies," she said, fully expecting him to decline her offer and find some way to insult her idea of fun.

But instead, he simply said, _'Alright.’_

“Really?” she asked, tossing her feet to the floor and jumping to stand. Weariness in her posture came over her, though not nearly as it had days before. “You really mean it?”

_‘Sure,’_ he said, sliding across the bed himself and standing at her side. _‘Haven’t watched a movie in sixty years.’_

"Oh," V said, "thank you."

She changed out from her pajamas quickly and into a simple yellow dress and the two left her apartment shortly. She did not bring her phone with her, unwanting to hear from anyone in particular that day.

The two made their way down to the street and headed in the general direction of south, towards the downtown of City Center, where the theater was located. V hoped that travelling by foot would give her brain time to breathe and think more clearly. 

Johnny walked with his hands in his pockets, with V at his side. If people were able to see the two of them together, they would look like they had been accidentally standing in the same location on the sidewalk, because they most assuredly did not belong together. A mismatched pair of V bright as a banana in her dress and Johnny looking like he had just crawled out of an 80s war film in his bulletproof vest and aviators.

Idle chitter chat was made as they walked, though there was little much to say. Standing to the left of Johnny, V's new arm aligned perfectly with his silver one, and somehow there was a kind of belonging she felt to be able to look to him and see herself accepted silently by his own losses. The sleek, smooth surface of hers directly rivaled the mechanical, exposed design of his. The back of her hand would occasionally brush his, but the two remained deliberately separate, with Johnny grumbling quietly to himself if she bumped into him.

When they had nearly reached the theater, after somewhat getting lost in the streets of City Center, V caught that Johnny had disappeared from her side.

“Johnny?” she asked, turning around to look and see that he was now standing at the window of a music store – Time Machine - to their left, hand up on the glass as he peered inside.

_‘Fuck, look at that axe, V.’_

She stepped up beside him to see what he saw. Inside the glass there stood an orange-red ombre guitar with a glassy finish. Its center was a light, yellowy color that transitioned to a darker orange on its outer edge, like fire.

“You like it?” she asked.

_‘Like it?'_ he repeated with an awe-struck scoff. _'It’s…I’m in love. She’s gorgeous.’_

“What kind of guitar is it?”

_‘Gibson Les Paul. ‘60 re-issue. Cherry Sunburst.’_

“You know your stuff.”

_‘Had a lotta time in Mikoshi to stew on it. Sixty years does a fuckin' number on ya.'_

She stepped away from the window and turned fully to him. “You want it?”

Johnny gave her a look and pulled his sunglasses off, pushing them up on his head instead. _‘Aren’t you broke?’_ he asked.

V shrugged. “A little. But. Money is best spent on the things we love. For people we care about. And if it makes you happy, I’d be willing.”

_‘You don’t have to do that, V.’_

“I know," she said. "But I want to.”

They entered the store – well, _she_ did, technically – and walked over to the guitar on the inside.

Johnny pressed his knuckles to his lips and then reached out without touching towards the Les Paul. _‘She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Think I’m gettin’ a little choked up.’_

"You need a moment alone, lovebirds?" V asked.

_'Not a moment, V. A lifetime.'_

She laughed lightly and patted him on the back, shaking her head as she walked away towards the counter to ask the worker if they could get the guitar down for her to look at. 

The girl behind the register went into the back and returned with a set of keys, to which she crossed the room to unlock the case to the Les Paul and carefully pulled it down, handing it to V for her to examine. 

"I'll take it," V said immediately, and held it out again with both hands towards the woman, who gave her a surprised look.

"Sure you're not gonna think about it?" the woman asked, taking the guitar back and looking it all over. "Pricey stuff."

"It's exactly what I was looking for," V said. "Don't need to."

The woman regarded her in vague suspicion for a moment and then shrugged. "Alright," she said, and pushed the glass case closed.

V followed her to the counter and went through with the purchase, Johnny feverishly watching over her shoulder throughout the whole transaction. 

A price-tag like that may have made her curdle into a little pile of goo in the past, but she didn't mind so much those days. Still didn't want to shell out 15,000 eddies to Rogue though. 

V handed the guitar, now securely packed in a wine-red case, over to Johnny, and he slipped the case's strap over his shoulder. Even though he was now holding it in her mind, it was technically her who still held it. She felt the slight pressure of it ghosting her back and shoulder despite it being on him.

_'Fuck, V, you really didn’t need to do that,'_ he said, looking at her in absolute astonishment. 

“I could be dead soon. It’s worth it.”

He shook his head with complete, raw wonder painted upon his face at what had just happened, but shook it off and walked across the room over to a large wall with CDs and vinyl records. V trailed close behind him to see what had caught his eye. 

"Feeling at home?" she asked, pushing gently against his shoulder and then standing away from him again.

_'Been so fuckin' long,'_ he said. _'Feel like a damn kid in a candy store.'_

Johnny thumbed through a section of CDs, flipping them one at a time and searching for nothing in particular.

_‘What kind of music do you listen to, V?’_ he asked, and it was with a tone she had never heard from him before.

He was _excited_.

He was _happy_.

“I really like Lizzy Wizzy. That song she has, it's, uh...Delicate Weapon. I like that one,” she said, turning a CD over in her hand and reading the song list on the back. She placed it back on the shelf. “She hasn’t put much out lately, though. Us Cracks are also pretty fun.”

_‘That was a lead-in for you to say Samurai, V.’_ He put his hand on her shoulder and she looked at him with a smile she was trying to hold back. _‘I left it wide open for ya.’_

“Oh, sorry,” she said, and cleared her throat dramatically. “Uh. I mean, of course, my favorite band is Samurai! How could I forget?”

_‘And your favorite member of the band?’_

“Kerry.”

He dropped his hand from her shoulder and shook his head. _‘Really?’_ he said.

“Sure.” V shrugged, reaching out to pick up an interesting record she’d come across. “He seems cute.”

Johnny chuckled lightly, himself now looking at a record he had pulled out. _‘Don’t know if you’re really his type, V.’_

“What?” she said, looking up at him. “Super adorable?”

_‘A girl.’_

“Oh…” She placed the record back on the shelf. “Gotcha.”

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

“What’s… _your_ type?” she asked quietly, distracting herself from looking at him by moving down a row and flicking through a different pile.

_‘Not you, either, V,’_ he said with a humored shake of his head.

“Well,” she said, stepping back to him, “what’s wrong with me?”

_‘You’re just too…soft…’_ He patted her on the shoulder. _‘Too nice. You’re like a rubber duck. Or a…marshmallow. You have the sexual appeal of a daisy.’_

“Lots of people like marshmallows.”

_‘Well, when you find them, I’m sure they’d love to roast you over a fire and eat you.’_

“I don’t know, that sounds to me like a comment you could only make if you liked me at least a _little.”_

She held up her thumb and pointer finger to indicate a tiny space between them but he pushed her hand away with a short laugh.

_‘Nice try, V.’_

He placed his hand overtop a collection of records and turned to face her fully.

_‘So tell me, Samurai fan numero uno, my version of Chippin’ In is better than Kerry’s, right?’_

“I like both,” V said, “but…I do like Kerry’s a lot.”

_‘Of course you do.'_ He shook his head in chide and turned back to the albums. _'Nobody has any taste these days. Shouldn’t even have asked for your opinion if you like that fuckin’ Ponpon Shit.’_

V looked towards the door and checked the time on her Kiroshis. 

"You still wanna see that movie? It starts soon."

_'Tryin' to pull me away?'_ he asked.

"We can always come back."

He sighed and stepped back. _'Alright.'_

When they finally arrived at the theater, V wasn't sure what they might see, but Johnny noticed they were playing some 90s revival double-feature and practically begged her in as best a whiny Johnny way as he could for her to choose that.

Neither movie she had ever heard of, but it clearly made him happy to be there, though he talked her ear off through the entirety of them both as he criticized the acting, the script, the characters, pointed out specific things she should watch out for, and constantly bumped her metal arm with his own on their shared armrest. 

They were the only two in the theater and so she talked openly to him, which earned her a strange look when the usher came in to sweep the floors. Johnny couldn't contain his laughter at this as they left and refused to let it go that she had been caught talking to herself. He was in a better mood than she had ever seen him in.

* * * * *

Back home again, V placed her bag on the floor by her bed and lay down, facing up at the ceiling. She watched as Johnny crossed over to her and lay the guitar case on the covers, carefully opening it and removing the Les Paul.

He held it up to her as she watched him. _‘Want me to teach you how to play?’_

“Okay," she said, and he sat beside her, gesturing her to move closer to him, which she did. 

She scooted to his side and he placed the guitar in her arms and positioned her hands to the correct places.

He settled in behind her and carefully put his arms in alignment with her own, cupping his left fingers over hers on the neck of the guitar and his right on the strings further down. His silver hand was cold against her skin, though her new white metal one was surely cold against his.

_‘Okay, fingers right there,’_ he said, picking up her pointer and middle fingers and readjusting them. _‘Just like that. Good girl. Perfect.’_

Her right arm trembled and she fumbled her thumb over the strings.

“Sorry,” she said, sheepishly, shaking it out and placing it again over the guitar. “Still not used to this thing.”

_‘That’s okay,’_ he said, holding out his own silver limb to show her. _‘It feels normal after a while.’_

"You know your way around that thing," she said. He was close enough that she could feel him breathing against her neck.

_'Lotta practice,'_ he said, tightening the strings with the tuning knobs. 

"You know I meant your arm, right?" V giggled quietly. She held out her new arm to his silver one. “Together we now only have enough arms to make one whole person.”

_‘As if we aren’t already one whole person.’_

V chilled at this, and Johnny suddenly felt a bit too close. It had been fun before, but now, she wasn't so sure. It was a bit too real.

He strummed a few experimental tunes with their layered hands and made sure to take care with her fragile hand. He hummed quietly to himself, finding a rhythm as he carried her arms through the actions.

_‘And you know me now…like a mother knows a child.’_

He sang slowly, his words hitched by the hesitating pace of V’s fingers across the strings. His voice was earnest, a quietness she had not heard from him. It was unlike his sound in Samurai.

_‘And you know me now…’_ He readjusted her hand where she’d played a wrong note. _‘There you go, girl._ _And you know me now…like I came from your own body. I can feel your pulse like a…’_ He corrected her fingers again. _‘…like a moth inside a jar. And even this is still too far…even this is still too far…’_

“What’s that?” she asked, turning her head to try and look at him where he was behind her. He pulled away and left the guitar in her arms.

_‘Old song I used to listen to,'_ he said. _'Probably, hell, 2009?’_

“It’s nice.”

_‘Yeah, well.’_ He stood from where they’d sat and thrust his hands into his pockets. _‘There you go.’_

“Play something else,” V said, holding the guitar out for his taking.

He watched her for a moment, regarding the instrument with guarded hesitation, checking her eyes and her body language for signs that she was having him on.

_‘Alright,’_ he said at last, taking the guitar into his arms and then having a seat at her side again. She pulled her feet up on the bed and sat crisscrossed towards him.

He tuned the strings once again to his liking, twisting the knobs like it had only been yesterday that he’d last done so. And, in a lot of ways, considering the nature of the engram, it kind of was like yesterday.

He plucked out a little something, testing the instrument with anything he had up his sleeves. He felt a nervousness to perform which he had not in many years of playing in Samurai. V could feel it emanating off of him and through her. 

_Nervousness. Excitement. Anticipation. Hopefulness._

_‘I think you’ll like this,'_ he said.

_‘Sakura, flowers in the spring.’_

V’s heart clenched and a wave of nerves flew over her. That feeling of being caught was falling on her again. That feeling of something like guilt becoming her and crushing her emotions.

“Johnny…” she said, her voice shaky and sparse.

_‘Sakura, bloom on cherry wings.’_

She placed her hand over the fret board. “Johnny,” she said. “Please. How about something different?”

He smiled and shrugged her hand off.

_‘Daddy’s little girl,_

_Cherry blossoms around the yard._

_Flowers in her hair._

_She smiles like wishes,_

_It brings her home to me.’_

“Johnny, please don’t do this to me." She felt faint. "Please don’t push like this.”

He stopped playing. _‘What’s wrong?’_ he asked.

“You pulled that song from my memories,” she said. “My…my dad…used to sing it. When I was a little girl.”

_‘I know,’_ he said. _‘I thought that would make you happy.’_

“I just…Johnny, please. _Please_ , pick something else.”

From where they sat, her hand was up again over the strings to prevent any more music from being played. There were merely breaths separating them. Any movement would pop the fragile bubble of the atmosphere surrounding them.

_And he kissed her._

But she pulled away just as soon, just as quick, retreating from the bed and stepping backwards away from him.

She wiped her lips on the back of her left hand and looked at him with widened eyes.

“W-what was that?” she asked.

_‘Well, I know what it was supposed to be. Unless you come from a planet where a kiss means something completely different.’_

“Why didn’t you ask?” 

_‘What?’_

“Why did you do that without making sure it was okay first?”

_‘What’s so wrong about it? I thought we were on the same page. You asked me all those questions today about what I like, so I thought you were trying to hint at something.’_

“Now I don’t get to choose," she said exasperatedly, moving aimlessly in front of him. "You took that away from me.”

_‘Choose? What? I think you’re overreacting.’_

“You think that just because you’re a guy and I’m a girl that this is an expected thing? That it has to be like this because…because…”

Her directionless pacing was making her anxiety worse, but she could not halt in her frustrations. She wanted to run, wanted to disappear, wanted to escape to a place where nobody could follow. But this place did not exist.

“I have to share _everything_ with you,” she said, much more loudly and frantic than she’d intended. “The only things I have left are my thoughts. My feelings. That’s the only humanity I still have.” She pressed her palms against her face, finding that her skin was covered in tears she hadn’t known were falling. She dropped her hands and looked back at him.

_‘Your humanity?’_ Johnny asked, bewildered. _‘What in the world are we talkin’ about?’_

“You want to take that away, too,” she continued. “You want everything. I’m not safe anywhere. When I’m sleeping at night, I’m afraid you’re there. When I’m in the shower, I feel disgusting because I know you can see me. I’m not safe in my own skin. So please, _please_ let me have this one thing. And when my brain is completely deleted, you can do whatever you want to me. But right now, let me have this. Let me have my ability to choose. To think. To feel things that have _nothing_ to do with you. I deserve the right to choose.”

_‘V, where is this comin’ from?’_

Johnny sat, stunned, his face covered in shock and confusion. V returned to him and pulled the guitar away, walking to place it on her bed.

“Don’t ever play that song again,” she said, putting the guitar into the case and closing it without clasping the locks. She slid down beside her bed and leaned her elbows against her knees, palms pressed to her face.

Johnny stood frantically at her sudden bizarre actions, looking to the guitar behind her and then to her. His hands were out in front of him in caution as he gauged her reactions.

_‘V, you’ve gotta be kidding me. Tell me what's goin' on.'_

“Is nothing sacred?” she asked, her voice cracking as she looked up at him through bleary eyes. “Is nothing mine?”

He knelt beside her and reached out but she leaned away, her breathing nearly too much to handle. She felt like she would pass out and she didn’t understand what was happening.

_‘V, what is goin’ on with you?’_

“I used to think you were right,” she said. “That the worst thing a person could do is make you become someone else. But lately I’ve wondered if the worst thing of all would be for my thoughts to be taken.”

_‘Your thoughts?’_

“My thoughts are the only place where I’m safe. Where I’m alone. I have to use my mind to escape. I have nowhere to go.” She pushed her face into her knees and wrapped her arms around her head to cover her crying from being seen. “I use my mind…to escape _you.”_

Johnny stood quickly and placed his hands on his hips. He gestured wildly to the case on the bed.

_‘Then why did you give me this fucking guitar if you hate me so much?’_ he asked loudly, and she cringed in fear at the intensity of his voice.

“Because I don’t hate you at all, Johnny! Not even a little bit.” She stared to the carpet of the floor. “Not even…at all.”

He crossed to the other side of the room in exasperation, and then came back, heaving out a breath in her direction and tapping his foot on the ground impatiently.

_‘If I hadn’t played your dad’s song, but I still kissed you…would you have kissed me back?’_

“I don’t know,” she said weakly. “And since you have to ask, I guess you don’t know either.”

He knelt at her side carefully again and reached out to place a hand on her knee, but she shuffled away, pushing herself into the corner beside her bed and beneath the window.

_‘V, I’m sorry.’_

She hid her face as best she could and leaned her head against the wall. Her brain was throbbing. “Me too.”

_‘We had such a damn good day together…I just thought…’_ He shook the words from his head and stepped away. ‘… _nevermind.’_

V uncovered her face and looked at him again as he annoyedly turned and walked in no particular direction at all, his chaotic movements a reflection of her fractured mind.

“You thought what?” she asked.

_‘Jeez, V, I don’t know.’_ His hands, which had been on his head, he threw to the air and then dropped to his sides. _‘I thought there was something happening here. Fuck. I don’t know!’_

“Did you think that I would just…just let you do whatever you wanted?” She cringed, trying not to cry. “That you could just…just…”

_‘What is your problem, V!? Why are you like this?’_

**_“I’m like this because I was raped!”_** _she said._ **_“That’s my problem!”_**

_‘W-what?’_

She bit down on her left hand in the space between her thumb and pointer finger, trying with all her might to dissuade the disappearing that she was feeling, the floating, the leaving. She barely felt she was there in that room at all.

“I didn’t leave Night City because of an explosion in my building.” She was clawing at the insides of her palms with her nails, digging into them and pressing hard. “And I didn’t step on a mine.”

_‘But…what?’_ Johnny asked, quiet as a mouse. He was frozen where he stood. _‘You...your memories. I can see them.’_

“I repress reality so much that even I don’t really know what the truth is anymore. You don’t see it because I don’t want you to.”

Beside her bed, Johnny sat, careful to maintain a distance from her. He waited patiently for her to catch her breath and be able to speak again through the crying.

_‘V…’_

“Four years ago,” she said, looking down the wall towards the couch, her head still pressed to it. “Tyger Claws came to my apartment in Japantown because my home had been tapped as a drug den. That wasn’t true, but having that happen is a death sentence. You’ll get raided as fast as it takes for word to spread. They came…as a group. I don’t know…I don’t know how m-many there were.”

All across her body, she felt weightless. Her skin was sickly flu-ish, hot and cold at the same time, and the teary sobs held in her throat made breaths a constant struggle. It was a task to stay mentally present.

“I tried to tell them,” she said, “that I didn’t have what they were looking for, that I didn’t have drugs. But they didn’t care about that.”

Johnny remained silent, watching her in absolute devastation from where he sat. She could feel his emotions overtop her own and it made her hurt even more to feel the way he was reacting to this.

“I knew who they were, I think. And sometimes I wonder if they hadn’t just made it up. That the claim my house had been tapped was just a lie to make me f-feel afraid. I think they just didn’t like me for some reason. I think…I don’t know.”

She slid down the wall onto her left side and lay there, curling her legs up towards herself, her hair falling in front of her eyes. Reaching to move it, she revealed Johnny into her line of sight as he sat, bewildered.

“I thought they were going to kill me…and I think I would have rather been dead than go through what I had to go through that day. I really don’t want to go into specifics, but…I lost a leg. I’m sure you can imagine.”

_‘How did you survive?’_ he asked, words coming to him at last.

“Viktor found me…in an alley." She imagined him that day, stumbling across her, naked and bloody, laying among piles of debris after she had been dumped there. "I thought I was dead. That’s how I met him.”

She felt bittersweet at the memory. Some flowers can grow in the darkest of places. 

“Fighting Oda..." she said, though the thought of him hung on the edges of her mind like roughly hammered nails. "Fighting Oda made me feel like that day made me feel.”

_‘Does anyone know?’_

“Viktor. Jackie.” V sat up straight again, back against the wall once more and legs pulled to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. She pressed her cheek against the left and thought of the feel of it on her skin. “I think part of the reason he asked me to move in with his mom and him when I came back to the city was because he was afraid for me to live on my own.”

She thumbed over her knee with her new hand.

“He was there for me after it happened," she said. "Jackie. And when you go through something like that with someone, being that vulnerable…it’s not something you can forget about.”

Tears washed over her again and she could feel them lingering heavily behind her eyes.

“Jackie was…everything, to me. He was the only person that made me feel safe. When everything in this world was so big, he was bigger. Larger than life. And I felt like I could be protected there. For him to have died feels like the world’s ended. Innocence lost. Jackie was supposed to live forever.”

Saying his name out loud was hard, let alone recalling her memories of him. 

“His mom found out one day when I had a panic attack at their bar and I couldn’t explain how to help me, so I just sort of blurted it out. It was a hard time.”

_'So, what was the other story you told?’_ Johnny asked. _‘About MAX-TAC raiding your apartment building.’_

“There _was_ a MAX-TAC swat on that building, this much is true. But I was long gone by then. I just…I just imagined that was why I left. I wished it were. When people ask, that’s what I tell them. Because the truth is too much to accept.”

_‘Do you hate them?’_

"Hate who?" she asked.

_'The guys who did it.'_

“No.”

_‘Why? Doesn’t it make you want to kill them?’_

“Jackie wanted to. But I stopped him. It just wouldn’t have meant anything. It wouldn’t have been for me; it would have been…I don’t know. It just wouldn’t have had meaning.”

_‘Vengeance isn’t meaningful to you?’_

“Not when you don’t know why you’re doing it. I could barely walk for a long time. I was in no state to hit the streets looking for a fight I could never win.”

_‘When did you join the nomads?’_

“It was only a few months after the…incident. I couldn’t stand being around anyone who knew what happened to me, treating me like I was…like I was so breakable. I didn’t want anyone to know that something like that had happened to me, so I pushed them away and I left. But, I always wonder what might have happened if I had never gone. If I had stayed…what would Jackie have been to me? Could I have kept him away from the Valentinos? Would my being there have kept us from ever trying to go after the Relic? I don’t know. But the last six months I just spent with him weren’t enough to make up for four years of being gone. It isn’t fair.”

_‘What about your nomad family?'_ Johnny asked encouragingly. _'Make any friends there?’_

“Not really,” she said. “I wasn’t much of a good friend to have during that time. I was closed off, and I wasn’t trying hard enough to ask for help. I was afraid to.”

_‘Why didn’t you tell the truth?’_

“Because talking about it,” she said, and breathed heavily through her nose, unable to find herself in these words. "Talking about it makes me feel… _embarrassed.”_

_‘V…’_

“It makes me feel strong to think that I escaped from an explosion. But in reality, I couldn’t even fight off a couple of men.”

_‘Rape doesn’t make you weak, V. It’s not embarrassing.’_

“All my life, I’ve hoped that one day, I would matter to someone again.”

_‘You matter to me.’_

Everything hurt inside her. Her face stung inside with tears she had not cried yet. Her lip quivered and she covered her face with her hands and let the tears fall. 

To be told that someone was there for her. 

To be told that somebody was listening. 

This was a responsibility she could not handle. 

The responsibility of relinquishing control and allowing someone else to take her by the hand and help her when she could not help herself.

“Let’s not talk about it anymore. I already regret that I said anything.”

Johnny stood from where he had been sitting and held his hand towards her. 

She regarded him with apprehension, but he held steadfast in that extension of an olive branch, his human hand to her in an offer of peace. 

Wiping her face on the back of her forearm, she reached to meet his with her new arm, extending it before her eyes and finally being forced to face the reality that there would never again be there what once was before. She touched her fingers to his with hesitant anxiousness and he slipped his hand into hers.

He pulled her to her feet gently and released her hand, though not before lingering there at her touch for enough time that she noticed he was doing it. She released a long sigh and felt that her chest had become lighter. Johnny stood in front of her, a few inches taller, and looked into her eyes with calm intent. She looked back, giving a small smile, one in which he mimicked, and then he grabbed her hand lightly again and led her to her bed, helping her sit down. She shuffled up to her pillows and grabbed one, placing it in her lap and hugging her arms around it.

He sat on the bed at her side and held out his silver hand towards her, to which she placed her own prosthetic to his palm. 

_'One and the same,'_ he said. She smiled faintly, but it fell as she was overcome with residual grief.

He placed his other hand upon her cheek lightly and held her face, though she could not meet his eyes this time. It was too great a burden to bear. To be seen. To be looked at by him in what she saw as her shame. He ruffled her hair lightly and she couldn't help but smile.

He let go and turned to the guitar case at his side, pulling the Les Paul from its slumber once again and placing it over his lap. 

_‘Y’know…Kerry’s version of Chippin’ In **is** pretty good,’ _he said, twisting the tuning knobs of the guitar slightly between his fingers and testing a couple of notes. _‘You wanna hear it?’_

“Okay,” she said, readjusting her crisscrossing position to better face herself towards him. She rubbed her eyes to find them puffy and exhausted. Her whole face was feeling like a marshmallow. The thought made her smile and she knew Johnny would have liked that she'd so quickly taken to his squishy comparison.

_‘Think Kerry woulda liked you,’_ he said, plucking out a little something and continuing tuning to his liking. _‘He likes good people. And you’re right up there.’_

“I hope so.”

_‘I know so, V.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Johnny played for V is called _I Am Your Skin_ by a band called The Bravery. The Sakura song was written for this story.


	9. If You’re Foolishly In Love With Me, It’s A Fine Day For Sure

C H A P T E R N I N E

_If You’re Foolishly In Love With Me, It’s A Fine Day For Sure_

V would not come in contact with Takemura again for nearly two weeks, upon the recovery of Anders Hellman from his hiding place beneath the protection of Kang Tao.

To her great chagrin – and the persistent, _tenacious_ urging of Johnny – she bit the bullet and dropped the piles of eddies to gain an audience with Rogue.

This was going to be it, V thought. Rogue was going to strike V gold with some direct line to Hellman, because Johnny had been _so_ insistent that Rogue was the woman to talk to. Rogue knew everything, she knew everybody, and she was supposed to have her hand in every pot. V would just have to waltz into the Afterlife, drop a couple of eddies, and Rogue would say, _“Anders Hellman? You mean **that** Anders Hellman? Well, why didn’t you say so. He’s right here!”_

But this didn’t happen.

And to V’s even greater chagrin than the loss of those precious eddies, this audience with Johnny’s ex-friend ultimately meant little to nothing. Because Rogue quickly shrugged V off onto the trail of a nomad woman named Panam Palmer.

V shelled out 15,000 eddies to be shown the door, essentially.

Despite her mully-grubbing about the needing to meet with Rogue, V knew in the end that it was not only helpful, but downright necessary. No job could be taken on in Night City without the backing of a Fixer. A Fixer was, at the end of the day, a pimp for mercenaries. And a doll can’t take clients without a pimp – _this city just won’t let that happen._ Everybody has to go through the required channels, pass eddies through the right hands, and every sucker will get his due diligence.

V couldn’t go after somebody like Anders Hellman, _Arasaka’s Most Wanted_ , without the financial and informational backing of somebody as significant in this place as Rogue.

So, there she was, Anders Hellman pathetically sitting in a chair at the Sunset Motel and having to follow V at her every whim. All the while, she was trying every possible thing she could not to clobber the man then and there for being so insufferably _money_.

She had spent so much time out there - running with Panam and the Aldecaldos - that she was beginning to forget the bustling world of the city, its fast-paced hustle fading from her recent memory. She was remembering why she had run away to the Bakkers all those years ago.

V wasn’t sure who else to call, so, she did the Night City equivalent of calling the circus on the clown and she contacted Takemura to come collect. Takemura was Arasaka’s loyal guard dog, and if she needed Anders to explain what his role in the creation of the Relic was, then she needed him with Arasaka, whether she was happy about it or not.

Takemura arrived in due time, and when he laid eyes on the Swedish man strapped to the chair, V saw in Takemura something she had not in all her time of knowing him - an eagerness to intimidate. She saw a glimpse of the harsh and overpowering demeanor he must have held at the side of Saburo Arasaka. She didn't know if it frightened her or incited curiosity. 

But she knew one thing. 

It made her want to _know more._

V waited outside the Sunset Motel for him to finish his interrogation, and when he returned from the room, Anders Hellman clasped at his side, V jumped from her seat on the curb to follow them. 

Takemura opened the passenger's side door of his van and pushed Hellman inside, then closed it shut.

“Takemura!” V called out as Takemura made his way around to the driver’s side.

She quick-walked over to him and stopped at his side.

“Takemura, hey,” she said. “It’s been a while.”

“Yes,” he said. “The being apart. This is for our safety.”

“That’s actually what I wanted to ask you about.”

“Yes?” he said, somewhat impatiently. He looked towards Anders in the vehicle and then back to her.

“I want you to train me,” she said quickly, and at these words, he ushered her away from the window and over a few feet from the van. “I mean…I want to _ask_ if you would train me.”

“Train you?”

“Yes.”

He crossed his arms and stood up straighter, looking down at her with suspicious eyes. “And what will you learn?”

“I think that’s up to you,” she said, “y’know… _sensei.”_

“Do not say that.”

“Sorry.” She looked around at the motel parking lot, at the way its neon signs shimmered in the puddles across its surface. She looked back to him. “But will you?”

“I do not know, V.”

“Please?”

She clasped her hands together in a begging way.

“Please?”

He shook his head and looked to the night sky, avoiding her.

“Please?”

His eyes shot back to her and he said, “V, you are incessant.”

“Please?”

_“Fine.”_

He uncrossed his arms and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I will come to your apartment tomorrow night.”

“Thank you!” she said, her hands still together. “Okay, I’ll let you get back to it, then.”

She backed away slowly, still smiling, and stumbled slightly over the curb behind her, to which Takemura scoffed in humor and shook his head, giving her a vague wave goodbye and returning to the van.

“Tomorrow night,” she whispered to herself. “Tomorrow night. Okay.”

* * * * *

“Takemura, I want you to have this.”

The two now stood - "tomorrow night" - in the open space of her apartment, she having just returned from the storage room and now was holding out Oda’s katana – Jinchu Maru – towards him.

Takemura shook his head.

“You defeated him,” he said. “It is yours. To give it to me, I must disarm you in battle and it shall pass to my ownership.”

She furrowed her brow in confusion. “You didn’t have to fight me for Satori,” she said.

“That was different, V. Satori did not belong to you. Nor me, either. I have surrendered Satori to Hanako-sama. Her father will be lain to rest with the sword by his side.”

“Oh,” V said, her arms lowering. “I didn’t realize you’d…given it away.”

“Satori was not mine to keep,” he explained. He was dressed in one of his white shirts he promised he owned more of; sleeves rolled to the elbow. “She belongs with the Arasaka family. You did not gain her honorably, and so, it was not my place to accept her.”

V stared down at Jinchu Maru, looking at herself in its reflection. “Well,” she said, “then…fight me for this one.”

“Why are you so persistent?” he asked, and she looked to his face to find him concerned.

“Because I want to give you something, but you won’t take anything,” she said, and held it out towards him again. He held up his hand in denial.

“I have not a need for material items, V.”

“Then, just play along, Goro. For me. Accept it because it makes _me_ happy.” She held it out further. “Please?”

“I will defeat you easily.” He shook his head in chide. “There is no point.”

“Oda couldn’t,” she tried, but Takemura only chuckled.

“Oda is a much younger man than I,” he said. “He is not experienced in the nuance of a good fight. He knows only hurt, and his technique – it is admittedly blunt.”

“But _you_ taught him.”

“This is true. But you can only teach one who is willing to learn. Oda was not always so receptive.”

“I’m willing,” V said hopefully.

Takemura crossed his arms and shook his head. “Oda also has not seen you as _I_ have seen you.”

“Meaning?”

He looked to her very seriously and she shrunk before his scrutiny. “Meaning he did not know how to cut you where it hurts,” he said.

V looked to her arm, and said, “I think he did.”

Takemura watched this, and then uncrossed his arms. He took Jinchu Maru from her hold and walked to place it on the couch, then returned to stand in front of her.

“No weapons,” he said. “We will go hand-to-hand.”

“And then you’ll take it?”

“I will,” he agreed, and she smiled, putting herself at the ready to fight.

He shook his head at the way she put her fists out.

“Do not charge me outright, V,” he commanded. “You leave yourself open to my attack.”

“Okay, okay,” she said, dropping her hands, though not knowing what else she was supposed to do with them.

They circled around each other very slowly, never breaking eye-contact.

“What am I supposed to be looking for?” she asked, making sure that she never turned her back to him.

“An opportunity,” he said, and he crossed to her quickly and stepped on her left foot, locking her in place. He buckled the knee of her prosthetic leg by forcing her shoulders down and shoved her to the ground, holding her head tightly under his palm.

“See?” he said. “You cannot best me, V.”

She struggled beneath the force of his palm and sank to the floor, letting her body go limp to escape from his grasp. She rolled over and away from him.

“I showed you my leg in confidence and you used it against me,” she said, standing again and brushing herself of.

“You must be prepared for your foe to take out all of their arsenal against you,” he said. “Oda was an unwitting foe. Had he been aware, he could have hobbled you, as I have. There are to be no exceptions in battle, V. Even for you.”

“He stepped on my leg,” V said. “I think he knew well enough.”

“And yet he did nothing of it?” Takemura scoffed. “He did not pull your leg off and smash it to pieces? No. He did not know. That he stepped on you, as you say, was surely circumstance of the fray and not knowledge of your weakest point.”

“Okay,” V said quietly. “Then you win.” She crossed to pick up Jinchu Maru again and held it out for him to take. “Here.”

“I have done something wrong,” Takemura said, but V shook her head in the decline, not answering with words and just holding out the katana for him.

“You asked for a fight and I fought you,” he said. “If you wanted me to let you down easily, you should have said this was your intention.”

He took the katana into his hands and looked it over in earnest, examining the sharpness of its edge.

“I didn’t want you to let me down easily,” V said, “but I didn’t think you’d actually try to hurt me.”

He squinted at her critically and shrugged.

“I have not hurt you,” he said. “You are clearly fine. No bumps or bruises.” He returned his attention to the blade. “Not from me, at least.”

“I mean my feelings. You hurt my feelings.”

He placed Jinchu Maru against her left shoulder gently, in faux disarm. She just stared at him.

“Yorinobu and Adam Smasher do not care about how you feel,” he said. “Will you fight them with your tears?”

“Goro…”

“I am trying to provoke you,” he said, removing the blade and making a pretend swing towards her from the side. “Is it working?”

V couldn’t help but grin and returned her attentions to be on alert. “You fight dirty, Goro. I think you cheated.”

“It is cheating that I use my opponent’s weaknesses against them? This is not cheating. This is tactical advantage.”

“Would it have been cheating if I’d taken my leg off and beat you with it?”

He considered this for a moment, and then shook his head. “I think that would have been considered a weapon. Contraband in the fight, and against the rules. Beating me with your leg would disqualify you. But surely, I would have let you win, in that case, as it would be unkind of me to overtake a one-legged girl.”

“So you’d go easy on me?” she asked. “I thought you just said there were no exceptions for me.”

“This is not what you wanted?” He looked confused. “Surely you are not asking me to test whether or not I can really kill you, V.”

“What if I am?”

She took a step towards him.

“Then you are certainly asking for more than Oda ever did. I do not believe he would have had the childish abandon to walk into a two-legged fight with only one of his own.”

“You were a professional bodyguard for the wealthiest man in the world – sounds like walking, talking free combat lessons to me.”

_"V."_

She took another step towards him.

“I’ll learn anything you have to teach," she said. "I’m sorry I complained. If I have to fight Adam Smasher, or Yorinobu – it’ll be rough. Please, Goro. I’m desperate. Don’t go easy on me.”

She readied herself, and he stood quite still, the katana resting in his hands as he faced it downwards and balanced it parallel to his legs, point to the floor.

Making a sidestep towards him, he immediately shut her down.

“No,” he said. “I have already slit your throat. Try again.”

She stepped back and reassessed the situation. He eyed her as she decided how best to approach.

Trying to come in from a different direction, she moved to the right – his left – and attempted to get close to him.

“No,” he said. “At this angle, I have a clear shot at your sternum. A precise cut with metal hands and I can rip your heart from your body. Dead. Try again.”

She sighed and stepped back. She shook out her body and he watched her amusedly.

She took a step back, hands clasped together behind her in pretend innocence. She walked towards him.

“No,” he said. “You have left your legs vulnerable. I can take you down with ease. Dead. Next.”

She groaned and turned away, pacing slightly around.

“There isn’t anything I can do then,” she exclaimed, and looked to him for an explanation. He just shook his head with a laugh.

“Do you now understand?” he asked. “You are at a tactical disadvantage with your lack of cybernetic upgrades.”

“But I defeated Oda,” she said, gesturing towards the blade in Takemura’s hands.

“Oda is nearly the same age as you, V,” he said. “Everyone else you seek to fight is much older, has had years to prepare for the moment when someone like you would walk in the door and threaten their power.”

V heaved heavily and placed her hands on her hips. She looked towards the window to see the sun had fallen beyond the horizon, the evening cityscape giving way to the neon expanse of night.

“You are tired,” he said. “You cannot fight in this state. You must be centered. You cannot allow impulsive emotions to overtake you. This will ensure your loss of the fight.”

“No,” she said, shaking out her limbs. “I want to keep going. We’ve barely even gotten started.”

“V,” he said seriously, crossing to lean the blade against the wall to their right. “What is it you are wanting to prove to me?”

“I want to prove that we’re equals,” she said, grabbing her left elbow with her right arm. “I need to redeem myself.”

“I already believe this, V. There is no need.”

“Not to you.” She shook her head. “To me. I want to know we’re on the same level.”

Takemura smiled with kind eyes.

“Truly, V. We are not,” he said, and she shrunk at this. “But that does not mean we are not equals. Beating me in a fight means little to whether or not you have my respect. I am indulging you in this lesson, V. Surely you see my admiration. My willingness.”

She walked over to the couch and sat down.

“If I return to the Arasakas…” Takemura said, following to where she had gone and taking a seat to her right. “…then perhaps Oda can challenge me to gain back his precious sword.”

V pulled her legs up onto the couch with her. It was darkening in the room with every last bit of sunlight that faded.

“Is that what you want?” she asked. “To return?”

“I do not know, V,” he said. “Maybe this will not be possible.”

She rubbed her upper arms, the room slightly cold.

“You could stay with me,” she offered carefully, quietly. “If you want. I don’t know where we could go, but you’ll always have a home here. You said once you might like to become nomadic. We could do that.”

“I appreciate your kind words, V,” he said. “Truly.”

They settled into unwilling silence then. Comfortable, perhaps, but strange, all the same.

V held out her right, metallic hand in front of herself.

“You now have one less human limb to hold you back," he said. "Take this as a strength.”

“Doesn’t feel so strong,” she said, and he took her new hand gently into one of his own.

“You must know how to use it, V,” he said, thumbing over her palm. “You are stronger than you know.”

She closed her hand over his where they touched and he allowed it.

“I want to prove I’m still enough,” she said.

“Enough?” he asked, reshuffling his position so that he could better face her. “V, you are more than enough.”

He placed his left hand on her shoulder and she winced slightly, almost imperceptibly.

“Your arm is giving you trouble?” he asked.

She nodded, though she was not happy to admit so. She was afraid to let him know that what had happened with Oda had made her life more difficult.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s still sore.”

“Would you like me to help you?”

Chills washed over her and she looked up at him where he was carefully regarding her.

“What do you mean?” she asked cautiously.

“I could help relax your muscles,” he suggested, and she did not know if he was aware of how exactly this sounded.

She searched through his eyes for indication of intent, but found nothing of ill-will.

“A-Alright,” she said. “What do you need me to do?”

He shuffled back slightly to give her room and said, “Just lay down on your stomach.”

“Okay,” she said, turning from him and then hesitating.

“Should I take my shirt off?” she asked, and then regretted it. She hadn’t meant for that to sound the way it had.

“If that would make you more comfortable,” he said calmly. “Then certainly.”

Facing away, she shyly moved to twist off her top with nervous hands and placed it to the side on the floor. She ran her hands along her upper arms and took a brief glance over her shoulder to him and then back.

She moved to stretch out, face-down, on the couch. She placed her legs out behind her to go between his legs and he settled carefully above her, letting his hands rest chastely upon her back.

His thumbs ran between her shoulder blades softly, trailing outwards until he could wrap his hands around her tired frame as she lay there and gently squeeze her shoulders.

“You are incredibly tense, V,” he said, running his hands down her arms and then settling them upon her middle-back, resting his fingertips in the space there which made goosebumps parade across her skin.

“Sorry,” she said; an automatic response. She placed her arms, crossed, beneath her face to lean on them and look out towards the room.

He pushed his hands up towards her neck and moved to brush away stray hairs which had loosely fallen across her back. “Why do you apologize?”

“Because I wasn’t good enough to fight you,” she said, readjusting her face where it was pressed against her arms. “I’m too anxious. If I wasn’t so anxious, I could have won.”

“Mhm,” he said, ever so carefully avoiding the thin strap of her bra where it stretched across her back. “Yes. Nerves surely were the only thing holding you back.”

V nodded and her eyes drifted closed sleepily. She looked out with what thin line of vision she had left to the city lights out the window, and she thought of all the people all across Night City who would be at home, in their own beds, on their own couches.

“That’s right,” she said, and yawned quietly. “Just nerves. Otherwise…otherwise, I woulda beat ya’.”

Takemura hummed affirmatively, his palms crossing downwards to her hips and running his hands along her sides, and returning upwards again.

“Yes,” he said, “should you have been more focused, I would have been _easily_ bested by you.”

V nodded and couldn’t help but give a tired smile at this, at his words which warmed her like the cups of coffee that so made her days bright and calm.

“Say something else nice,” she said quietly, her voice a soft, sweet whisper. “Positively affirm me.”

Takemura let out a gentle laugh, pressing soft movements into her lower back with his fingertips. “You want me to…how do they say this…hype you up?” he asked. “Hype you up, yes?”

V nodded and shuffled herself where she lay ever so subtly. She could feel him overtop her, where his body sat straddling her thighs, though not heavily enough that she would truly bear his weight.

He reached to her face as she surveyed the room with closing eyes, and ran the back of his hand along her cheek and then placed it on her back again.

“You are truly the most capable warrior I have ever met,” he said, kneading her muscles with his knuckles. “Cyberpsychos quiver in your presence and run away at the mere sight of you.”

V laughed and turned her head face down on the couch to giggle into her arms, and then returned back to looking out to her right into the room. “Mhm,” she said with a smile. “Go on.”

“You are certainly the strongest fighter in all of the city,” he continued, all the while gently palming over the skin of her ribs. “A match of arm-wrestling against Adam Smasher would be as child’s play to you. Your arms are simply the world’s strongest.”

“Mhm,” V said sleepily. “He’s gonna get what’s…” She yawned. “…what’s comin’ to him.”

“You are the fastest runner, also,” he added. “If Arasaka descends on the building with helicopters, you will simply sprint away from them as fast as a cheetah. Faster.”

“They won’t even know…what hit ‘em,” V said, her eyes slipping closed entirely and her brain feeling far away, too relaxed to maintain consciousness any longer.

For a moment, she was asleep, and she knew this because she shivered awake again – the feeling of falling – and heard Takemura continue speaking softly as he touched her.

“Apparently I possess the world’s most relaxing hands,” he said. “That is a point for me.”

She laughed and felt awake again. “Is that so?” she asked, her face warm, and if she looked in the mirror, likely flushed.

“What else?” he pondered out loud. “How about your eyesight. If there were enemies a thousand miles away, it would be simply no matter to the magnifying capabilities of your eyes. You should be able, I think, to see even a fly on the wall all across the earth in Tokyo. That is how high your skills of observation.”

“It’s the Kiroshis,” she said.

“Mhm.” He nodded, and his fingers lingered around her bra strap again. “If you fell out of a plane thousands of miles to the earth, you would walk away with barely a scratch. Your bones and skin are simply the world’s most resilient.”

“Oh, I’d love to go sky-diving,” she thought aloud, a spoken daydream which required no response. She was simply floating through the moments.

“If someone asked you the meaning of life,” he continued, “you would most certainly know it. The other person would instantly drop dead at the knowledge, at such scandalous news. But you know this, so this is why you must keep it secret. You must play the foolish loner to keep everyone on their toes.”

“You figured out my plans, Goro,” she said, turning her body slightly to try and look at him as he hovered over her. “Now all my secrets are exposed.”

He reached to her face again and she leaned into the touch, reaching her own hand to his and holding it there, then releasing. She shuffled to be fully on her stomach again. His body was heavier on her now, trying less to remain a careful distance above her thighs.

“You are…” he said, his fingers still halting closely around her bra. “You are the most beautiful. Even Hanako-sama, a woman of immeasurable physical esteem, would be left wanting at the sight of you.”

He swept his thumb to the back of her neck and brushed the baby hairs away, rubbing small circles around and then down the top of her back.

V felt close to sleep still, her eyelids droopy but her mind wanting to fight to stay awake.

_A soft kiss on her shoulder-blade._

She opened her eyes immediately, rising from her lain position and turning to look at Takemura. He moved away from her as soon as she did.

He retreated nervously on the couch and leaned one knee on the cushion, the other leg out to the floor. His head fell and he could not look at her.

“I-I am sorry,” he said, eyes downcast. “I have disrespected you.”

V sat up and covered herself with a blanket from nearby. She may not have been completely topless, but out of respect for him, she covered up.

“You haven’t disrespected me at all,” she said.

“It was wrong of me, regardless.” He was doing everything within his power to not make eye-contact. “I should not indulge.”

“Indulge?” she asked, making a slight shuffle closer to him. “You make it sound so…forbidden.”

Takemura breathed a sigh through his nose. “You are a much younger woman than I, V,” he said. “It would not be right in any situation. I am taking advantage.”

She moved closer, still, across the couch towards him, slowly and gently making her way over as if approaching a deer in a meadow. She placed her hand out to find his and he allowed her.

“It isn’t taking advantage if I say that it’s okay. And I want to.” She brought his right hand to her cheek. “I want to say that it’s okay.”

He said nothing, though he would look to her, now, and she knew that she had gotten through. He held his hand to her face of his own accord now.

“I want…you,” she said, testing this, worried it may be too far. “Do you…want me, too?”

He shook his head lightly in disbelief, lips slightly parted.

“I want you more than anything,” he said.

She cupped his hand in her own where it lay against her cheek.

“Then kiss me,” she said.

“It is okay?” he asked. “To kiss you?”

_“Yes.”_

Her word, breathless as she was, was as if suddenly, she were experiencing that which she had never known before.

To her lips, he met his, drawing the two of them together in chaste experimentation, innocent with wonder, like two children kissing in the backyard just to try it. It wasn’t sexualized, or intense. It was sensual, and caring, and curious – like a warm shower after having been out in the rain; the sudden appreciation that comes from how good the water feels. Warm for the very first time.

Being together like this, in these moments, slow like honey, and heavy with mood, yielding herself into the feelings that she didn’t understand, yet felt she had always known. Some untold truth was unraveling between them, a love unwritten, a road untraveled.

When he pulled away from her, he reopened his eyes, and she did the same. His were wide with a kind of emotional honesty that V felt unworthy to be the receiver of, that Takemura wasn’t hiding anymore.

For the first time, she felt that he was sitting spiritually bare for her, opening himself up to the experience of being together with another person in this way and letting them know him.

He reached up his left hand to her cheek and ran his thumb over the warm and soft pinkness of her blushing skin, and she leaned into the touch, still matching his gaze, not with intensity, but with affection. Open, welcoming doors. He was home here.

The home he didn’t have – it was right here, right here in the way she looked at him like they’d known one another forever.

He thumbed over her cheekbones, then to the side of her face where he tucked her hair behind her ear, and finally rested his palm lightly on her cheek.

She reached up her own hand – her right – to meet his left on her cheek.

Covering the back of his with her palm felt as though she’d known that touch before, that for some reason, she was programmed to know it. That none of this was by chance; that it was all planned, somehow. Whether by divine intervention, circumstance, coincidence – there was more here than met the eye, and their meeting was more than accidental.

He pulled his hand gently from beneath hers, and down the right side of her body, he timidly trailed his fingertips lower and rested his hand on her hip – or at least, he tried to. But as soon as his movements stopped there, she pushed his hand away from her body.

At this sudden negative reaction to his touch, he pulled away from her immediately to give her some space, then moved a few paces back on the couch so that he wasn’t too close or infringing on her in any way.

“I’m sorry…” he said, watching her as she crumbled in distress at the feeling of him having been so close. “Are you alright?”

She shook her head, arms wrapped around herself again like a protective shield, but said nothing in response to his concern, paralyzed by sudden overwhelm.

She pushed up from the couch, arms wrapped protectively around herself, and moved to sit on the coffee table instead, facing him. She cupped her hands in her lap, and slumped her shoulders a bit, looking down at the floor, or maybe at nothing at all.

“You can always talk to me,” Takemura said worriedly, placing his hands politely upon his lap to show her he meant no harm. “I realize that sometimes I am not the best at giving advice. But I can do my best to ease your burdens.”

“Do you actually like me?” she asked abruptly.

“That’s…an odd question,” he said, taking a little space in-between each word as he spoke. “Of course I do.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, her breath hitched and tight in her throat. “Or are you just pretending?”

 _Pretending_.

“You worked for Arasaka,” she said. “And you’re always talking about how important your job is. But then at the same time, you’re here with me. What’s the truth?”

“Do these two things have to be mutually exclusive?” he asked. “Can they not coexist?”

“No…no, I don’t think so,” she said, running her hands across one another anxiously.

“Why not?” he asked, and she shook her head in vague frustration, or perhaps disappointment.

“Because both of these things reflect a different view of the world, of the people around you,” she said, and held up both of her hands like the scale of justice, palms up. “You say that because Saburo Arasaka saved your life, that you owe him; that you can’t betray his family.”

She raised her left hand in reference to what she'd just said, and he regarded the gesture as though there were some invisible weight balanced in her palm.

“And yet, here you are, with _me_. Somebody Arasaka would kill at the drop of a hat.”

She raised her right hand, higher than the left, to show him that these were things that could never live while the other remained, that there would never be true equilibrium.

Both of her hands dropped back to her lap then and she sighed slightly. “You have to know that doesn’t make me feel very good.”

He shook his slightly head in confusion, clarifying her statement with, “What do you feel bad about?”

She let out a deep breath, and fidgeted with her hands, rubbing them over one another as if to ease anxiety.

“Because,” she said, looking down at her lap. “What does that make _me?”_

Caught in the middle of a rock and a hard place, V was resigned between two evils, her arm trapped behind that rock, pressed up against a wall and hoisted thousands of feet in the air. Takemura was that arm, that arm which would have to be severed in order for her to be free.

On one hand, he was obligated to his duties at Arasaka, his responsibilities for his job. Yet, on the other, here he was, effectively fraternizing with the enemy.

And V was there, trapped in the middle of his identity crisis.

“Do you not want to be free, Takemura?” she asked depressingly, her words quick and heartened, desperate and honest. “Do you not want to be able to choose how you live, without someone breathing down your neck all the time?”

_“V, I-”_

“You don’t know how lucky you are, Goro,” she told him, and he furrowed his brow, searching for an explanation in her face that she wasn’t giving him.

“Lucky? How am I lucky?” he asked, testing the word from his own tongue, and she raised her head slightly and let out a deep breath.

“You’re _you_ , that’s why. You’re intelligent, and perceptive, and organized – you’re just…amazing.”

“V, I am not following.”

“But then, what am I?” she asked, dismissing herself like she was talking about something un-valuable. “Just… _me_. With nothing to show for it.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, reaching a careful hand towards her and placing it overtop her own. “You are the most incredible woman I have ever met, and I am not just saying that to be kind.”

She removed her hand from his and awkwardly folded it up in her lap. He regarded her reaction with considering eyes.

“You do not like to be touched,” he said quietly, and she shook her head lightly at those words.

“No, I love being touched. When _I_ choose,” she said, and her voice quivered with a struck sadness, a vein hit that had made her suddenly so very upset. There was more that she had wanted to say, but for some reason, she couldn’t.

There was always more, always some wall of hers that he would never be able to see over, and whatever was hidden behind it, maybe…some things are best left unsaid. At least, that’s what she had to tell herself so as to not find herself tangled up in the preoccupation of all the words that went unsaid.

Takemura turned his attention out the window into the nighttime cityscape, across the enormity of it, looking towards those lights as if they were another land entirely, like gazing over a neon ocean – into some foreign land which he had never truly traversed.

V stared blankly forward, thinking of whether or not she should say what she was about to, whether or not she should step onto those foreign lands and take on those burdens which she held inside. Whether or not she’d be strong enough to walk alongside him, as a team, helping the other along and rising where the other fell.

She wanted him to know.

Said it because it mattered to her.

“I’ve had people touch me without my permission.”

At these words, she came undone, unraveled into loose threads of twine, unspinning from a coil and falling to the floor, beneath the floor, beyond. Unstuck, unstilled, underneath this shaky ground, slipping down to somewhere else, never again to be found.

“Come here,” he said, tenderly, not to scare her away, and she finally turned to him, baring her face with all the tears strewn down it to him, and letting the moon of him shine light on the fallen sun of her.

It really has been so kind of the moon to light the way for the sun in darkness.

Looking into the face of somebody who had everything lain out on the table in front of him, it was almost too much raw vulnerability to bear, too much sensitivity to feel; overstimulation from the expansion of her soul before him.

He reached out, almost touching her, waiting for her to let him know that it was okay to put his hands on her body – and she did so, leaning forward and into his chest, her arms around him, pulling herself into him as far as possible. She was trying to hide inside of him.

“You are not like those who have hurt you,” he said, _promised_ , and she nodded into his shoulder.

She wasn’t sure if she believed what he’d said, but the least she could do was listen, listen to those words spoken out into the world where maybe they could become true if he said them enough times.

With her arms wrapped around him, he would hold her until she stopped shaking, until her love wrapped him the way his did her – and no matter how long he had to wait for her to be ready to love him, he would wait.

Forever did exist in that world.

Forever. Not long at all.

Yet time still existed, and it would pass, and he would be there, waiting for every second, every minute, every hour, of every day.

V looked down to hide from his eyes, because what she felt was too strong, and she was scared that even her own breath would scare away this fragile love they'd created there. She never wanted to crack her foolish, fragile spine by pushing too hard, and making him fall away; careful not to drop him from the metaphorical place where he was nestled in her soul, safe for the keeping.

In these intimate moments, in his embrace, she only hoped that she would do no wrong, that she could care for him in a way that he deserved. That she could give up what she was to become was this other person needed her to be. Not a loss of self, but a finding of new purpose. To live for someone else. This was stronger than any dying for them.

“How about we leave here and take a walk?” he asked, and she wiped the tears from her eyes on the back of her wrists, nodding her head with a slight smile. "Nighttime will be adequate cover for us to go about the streets freely."

The two of them stood and he steadied her carefully. He reached for her shirt from the floor and handed it to her, maintaining a respectful distance away. She redressed with her back to him and then turned to see him take a few steps closer to her.

“You know…” he said, reaching to her face again. “You truly are beautiful.”

Her cheeks grew pink at this statement, and she smiled shyly. She placed her hand on his chest, over his heart, and felt the mechanisms of his body.

He slid his left hand up to meet her right one on his chest, and covered it with his palm. She looked up at him then, feeling their shared touch come together in peace and calm like that, in mutual adoration, and love, perhaps. Their eyes met with the same kind of twinkling warmth, like candlelight; her eyes a match, and his, a matchbox, setting alight a flame. 

Into her hand, he laced his own, pulling it away from his body and holding them between one another, squeezing her hand reassuringly and giving her a last smile before taking her on their way.


	10. And I'd Have Told You I Was Lonely Too

C H A P T E R T E N

_And I’d Have Told You I Was Lonely Too_

She didn’t understand what would come next.

It had been, perhaps, a month since the events of the heist on Konpeki Penthouse with Jackie. And yet, her life had been altered in insurmountable ways which she would never recover from. This had left her grappling with a confused sense of the passage of time and its consequences. She had, effectively, lived through Johnny’s entire thirty-five years in the blink of an eye upon his awakening in her brain, speeding through a lifetime like electricity passing fastly through a wire from one polar conduit to another. She felt she had aged dozens of years since she’d stood there in the glass box within Yorinobu’s room and looked out upon the tragic scene that had unfolded.

But, truly…a month. Only a month.

Did time matter in months? Minutes? Did it matter in moments? Was a month only what she made of it?

For her to take time and say, _“I decide when. I decide what this life means to me.”_

Everything had changed.

And V didn’t know if those changes could ever be reversed, or, if she even wanted them to.

How long did she have to live a lie, before it became her truth?

How long before her pain became her personality?

Before her heartache became her home?

Her sins became her safety?

Her loss became her love?

Was it never?

_Please, don’t say it’s never._

Because if it was never going to happen, V didn’t know what she was waiting for.

The other shoe to drop, maybe.

Every day, she waited. But it never came.

The old V left a long time ago, and no matter how long she searched, how deeply she looked within herself, the V of her childhood was now just as clear to her as a dream. Someone distant, fading slowly as each day went by. Maybe never to have existed at all.

As days passed, she tried desperately to bury this _thing_ that she’d become; bury it deep down inside a hole where she would never find it again. She saw her heart and decorated it like a grave, where it hurt to feel, hurt to breathe.

She couldn’t remember her own face before Johnny. His hands tapping darkened cigarette ashes into the place where V once was. She had eaten the sun, and her tongue had been burned from the taste.

Her nighttime walk with Takemura had been brisk and cool ice water to douse the flaming fire of her everyday life with Johnny in her head. She couldn’t recall the last time she had truly felt embraced by another person. Embraced in the way that he would place his hand near her lower back to usher her through a crowded street, or brush his shoulder against hers as they stood beside one another at the crosswalk. Embraced by his calm, embraced by his protection. Embraced by the promise that she would come to _no harm here._

When he saw her off that night, he did not kiss her. But she wasn’t sad. This was his way of telling her that he was listening, that he had _heard_ her in the pain she’d bared before him in her living room – and that he would not take them places she could not go. For every time V had been placed in a situation with no choices, Takemura presented the option to breathe freely.

In the morning, she awoke with the sun; that early rising light that cast the sky in earthy yellowed colors approaching the horizon of her window. It was a Sunday, and today she woke to find herself thinking for a moment of Jackie and forgetting that he had died.

She had dreamed of him. And she felt that very human, lingering feeling of having just been near someone after their dream appearance, her mind believing the fantasy to have been reality.

But it reoccurred to her, after several short minutes, that this was not so true as it felt, and he rushed away from her again, a candle blown out with the scent of smoke dissipating to nothing. A darkness where once there was light. A death where once there was life.

This made her want to see Jackie. Though the closest thing she had to this was Mama Welles, and she knew that it had been far too long since last she’d paid a visit to the woman who had homed her once. And so, V decided that this was what she would do that day.

She stood in front of her closet and surveyed its contents. Somehow, that morning felt strange. Felt beautiful. This was a way in which she may never have described a morning in Night City. But it was beautiful. A strange beauty.

A simple lilac and blush rose dress was chosen – a gift handmade by her aunt many years before that she had never truly thought to wear. It had been shrugged to the back of her clothing, buried beneath bulletproof vests and tattered jean jackets and chunky boots. It was something pretty that lingered in the shadows of the chaos of V’s life.

She dressed, crossing to the bathroom mirror and lingering before herself there. _Strange_ , she thought again. _Strange_ to care for the pointless beauty of a look over its functionality. And yet, that pointlessness was the point. Beauty was meant to be beheld. These simple pleasures were to be her new treasure. Beautiful dresses. Walks in the moonlight. Conversations with people who cared what she had to say.

Deciding she would not go to Mama Welles empty-handed, V pulled, from her closet, the large wok and portable cooking stove, which she carried to the place between the bed and couch, as usual, and turned the knob of heat clockwise.

Knelt at the side of the cooker now, she prepared an assortment of miscellaneous vegetables from her fridge, carefully dicing them into small cubes and slices.

In the wake of his absence which had begun a day or so prior, Johnny stepped into her line of vision. She first lay eyes on his leather boots as he appeared standing beside the wok. She looked up to him to see him already staring down to her where she sat.

“Hey,” she said, returning to her cooking. “Haven’t seen you since yesterday morning. Or was it the night before that?” She reached out to dump the cutting board of vegetables into the pan. They sizzled and crackled in the sesame oil she’d poured inside.

“What’s up?” she asked, setting the board to the side and retrieving a metal spatula with her left hand and a long pair of metal chopsticks with her right for stirring. “Did I get enough sleep last night? Was it okay for you?”

 _‘I think I could ask you the same thing,’_ he said, crossing his arms across his chest and leaning up against the wall between V’s bed and bathroom. He had a phantom toothpick hanging from his lips, chewing on it in thought. V could feel it emanating from him that he was anxious for a cigarette. Jittery. Wanting. Agitated but with little tangible reason.

“Hm?” V asked, half-distracted by the dish she was preparing before her, which she was generously adding spices to from the glass containers which she kept in her closet. “What do you mean?”

Johnny snickered to himself and rolled his eyes instinctively. He was tapping his foot against the floor.

 _‘Nice night?’_ he asked.

V, stirring the spatula through the wok, looked up at him at his words. “Johnny,” she said. “Please don’t make it out to be anything it wasn’t.”

He stepped away from the wall and, arms still across his chest, walked towards the couch behind V. He flopped down and threw his boots up on the table, his feet crossing at the ankle.

 _‘I see why you were upset with me for kissing you now,’_ he said. _‘Wanted to share that with him.’_

V watched him in his antics. His body language was telling her that he was frustrated about this revelation, but the way his thoughts flooded through her mind like smoke, cloudy but discernable, told her that he was experiencing something like understanding. Understanding in his own chaotically Johnny way.

V vaguely pointed the spatula in his direction. “Why didn’t you antagonize me about this while he was here?”

 _'Well, I’m not fuckin’ evil, V,’_ he said. He was looking around the room at nothing in particular, at everything but her. _‘Even if I’d gladly hobble the guy with a sock full of quarters.’_

V returned the spatula to the wok and made clockwise stirs. She couldn’t help but crack a smile, but she just shook her head lightly.

“You show such restrain, Johnny,” she said. The scent of sesame and spicy peppercorn wafted to her from the dish. “You’re a real champion.”

 _‘I know, I know,’_ he said. _‘I’m incredibly kind. Hold your applause.’_

“I get…that you don’t like him,” V said, choosing her words carefully. She thought about the way the food sizzled quietly as it cooked. “And I don’t know where this can go. But he makes me feel…hopeful. Makes me feel excited about the idea that I could really fix all of this. You and I have a real chance, Johnny.” She looked to him. “He’s so…so _sincere_ about getting Arasaka’s help, I mean…I can’t help but feel that he really means it. He makes me…he makes me want…better. For myself.”

Johnny scoffed humoredly. _‘Better meaning richer?’_ he asked.

 _"No,”_ she said immediately. “Better meaning…quality of life. Is…is that so wrong?”

 _‘Well, your taste is fucking garbage,’_ he said. _‘And I have to feel everything that happens to you which makes me wanna gouge my eyes out with a fork. And having to listen to him circle jerk about Saburo Arasaka is like a thousand enemas all at the same time. And I don’t like the way he wears his hair in that stupid bun. And I don’t like the way he talks like he’s a character from a book. And I don’t like the way he has ARASAKA printed on his neck like a brand. Fuck. I hate him. I hate him.’_

V lay her palms against her thighs calmly. “Are you done?” she asked.

_‘ **And** I don’t like that he thinks he’s better than us. And I don’t like that he eats expensive sushi with poncy fucking rich people. And I don’t like that he likes you, V. He’s too old. There. Now I’m done.’_

“And _you’re_ not too old?” she asked. “Mister 1988.”

_‘V, I’m only thirty-five. That’s nothing. He’s like… **fucking** old.’_

“Well.” V picked up the spatula again. “I don’t think that’s up to you. I happen to think he’s great.”

_‘Great.’_

“Great.”

V returned her attention towards her cooking and she could feel a disturbance in the space near her as Johnny stood from the couch and crossed to stand in front of her. She looked up at him as he stared down, analyzing her with sudden scrutiny to which she was confused. She gave him a look.

“What?” she asked.

_‘What are you wearing? I’ve never seen it before.’_

She looked down at the brightly colorful clothes on her body and then back up to him. “It’s a hanfu. Yu Shen made it for me.”

 _‘Hm,’_ he said.

“What?” V asked. “Don’t like it?”

 _‘You haven’t worn it before,’_ he pointed out. _‘It’s different.’_

“And?” V asked, picking out a pepper with chopsticks and blowing on it to cool it down.

 _‘And, I don’t know,’_ he said. _‘You tell me.’_

“Tell you what?”

_‘Why you’re acting different.’_

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She bit into the pepper and chewed, focusing on the flavor instead of their conversation. She wanted to maintain a positive atmosphere.

 _‘You goin’ somewhere?’_ Johnny asked, not to be ignored. He plopped down next to her on the floor and motioned towards the wok. _‘Whatcha cookin’ for?’_

“Visiting Mama Welles.” V held the handles of the wok and shuffled the vegetables around. “Bringing her some breakfast.”

_‘Can I come?’_

She reached for the glass carrying containers at her side and began to scoop portions of the vegetables inside. “I can’t really stop you,” she said.

_‘That’s not a very warm invite, V.’_

“Then, yes.” She closed the lid of one container and grabbed another. “Sure. If that’s what you want.”

_‘Is it what **you** want?’_

“I don’t know, Johnny. Sure.”

V stood, neatly packed containers in-hand and went to retrieve a picnic basket from her closet, which she placed open on the floor. Tucking the glass containers of food carefully within the basket, V padded them inside with a few cloth napkins to ensure they were secure. She folded the two sides of the top closed and latched them, and then stood up again and placed her hands on her waist.

“You alright walking?” she asked. “Think I need some air. Shouldn’t take us more than a half-hour or so. It’s early on a Sunday, so, traffic shouldn’t be too bad.”

 _‘Yeah,’_ Johnny said. _‘Yeah, sure.’_

V turned off the stove and unplugged it from the wall.

"You ready then?" she asked.

_'Ready when you are.'_

They made their way out of the apartment within the next few minutes or so and headed down the city across the southern bridge, towards City Center, taking the long way through Vista del Rey in Heywood to get to El Coyote Cojo. 

_‘Hey, V.’_

Johnny disappeared from her side as they walked and she instinctively turned to see where he’d gone and called to her from.

“Huh?” she asked. “Where are you?”

 _‘Over here,’_ he said, and she followed the sound of his voice and the vague thoughts in his head which told her his location.

_‘Isn’t this the place dear old Goro was hiding out?’_

He was standing at the entrance to the Vista del Rey apartments which they had huddled within after the parade.

She stepped closer to the place and took a good look up and down. “I think you’re right,” she said. “Looks different during the day."

Johnny shoved a thumb in the direction of the door, which was blasted open and crossed with a holographic NCPD tape.

 _'Wanna go peek around?’_ he asked.

V walked to his side and peered in without touching the holograph. “Hm,” she said, regarding the left and right sides of the room. “Investigation tape is still up. Think anybody’s inside?”

 _‘Nah.’_ He waved his hand off nonchalantly. _‘Been a few weeks. They’ve moved on.’_

Ducking beneath the tape wrapping the entrance – in the chance event that touching it might alert an alarm – V retraced her steps inside from what she could remember on that night.

“This is kinda…squicky,” she said. Johnny appeared on the staircase ahead of her.

 _‘Squicky?’_ he asked.

“Feels strange to be back,” she said, running her hand along the wall as she walked. “Revisiting the scene of a crime. Feels like I died here.”

Johnny knelt down beside a yellow police evidence number. _‘Wonder if your blood is still here somewhere,’_ he said, placing his fingertips on one of the steps and analyzing carefully. _‘Oh, yep. There it is. Hell yeah.’_

“We shouldn’t stay too long,” V said. “Food might get cold.”

_‘You can just microwave it when we get there. Or throw it in the oven.’_

“I guess you're right,” she said, looking around distractedly. "Let's go find that back staircase."

Johnny placed his hand on the stairs’ banister and descended the steps two at a time back to her side.

They walked along the path which she had theoretically lain on the night of the parade, retracing those past footsteps down the empty, debris-ridden halls of the apartments and towards the back stairs.

“I wonder how long this place has been abandoned,” V pondered aloud.

 _‘Can’t really tell,’_ Johnny said. _‘Little bit of something old, little bit of something new.’_

They ascended, heading to the third floor, the only open door.

The two of them cautiously explored the hall, it lit only by sunlight creeping through cracks and large open spaces in the walls and ceiling.

V gasped suddenly and knelt to the floor, Johnny behind her, nearly running into her as they walked.

She grabbed something from the floor, leaving the picnic basket at her feet, and stood again, staring down at her found item in awe.

Johnny peered over at the thing in her hands, leaning his chin on her shoulder. _‘What’s that?’_ he asked, reaching out to touch it, to which she held it out in her palms for him to see.

“My bag…” she said, squeezing it with her fingers to feel the guns inside. “I thought I’d lost it.”

She shuffled around within the bag to its contents and beamed when she felt what she was looking for.

“Oh, thank god,” she said, pulling Jackie’s pistol that he had gifted her from within and holding it in her right hand. “Oh, I missed you so much.”

She hugged it to her chest and closed her eyes, whispering silent thanks to no one in particular.

From the floor, she grabbed the picnic basket again and continued off down the hall. The straw handbag was held on her right shoulder.

A slightly opened doorway to her right caught her attention and she paused to peer inside.

_‘V, think fast!’_

She felt an immediate knowing in her mind of what Johnny was doing, and turned automatically with her hand out to find a softball thrown to her – which she caught.

 _‘Hell yeah, V!’_ he said, jogging over to where she stood to give her a high-five. _‘I knew we were good for something. Read my mind.’_

Johnny turned around, satisfied with himself, and continued off down the hallway. 

V tossed the softball to the side and it rolled away. She soft-jogged to catch up. 

Johnny had stopped outside of the short hall to the right which led to Room 303.

 _‘Wanna poke around Arasaka’s lapdog hideout?’_ he asked.

"Ooh," V said. "Yeah!"

 _'Beat you there,'_ Johnny said, and dashed into the room. V set her picnic basket to the floor carefully and sprinted after him as they dodged their way around the floor collapse and into the back right corner of the room.

Johnny flopped on the bed and put his hands behind his head.

“Oh, look!” V said, landing a running seat in a rolling computer chair and spinning over to the nearby desk. “His laptop’s here. Think there’s anything good on it?”

Johnny appeared at her side, sitting on the desk, facing towards her. His legs were crossed at the ankle.

 _‘Probably not,’_ he said. _“He **did** leave it here, after all. Don’t think he’d abandon somethin’ he needed.’_

V reached to the touchpad of the device and the screen blinked on, opening a box to type a code for unlocking its contents.

“Hm…password…password.” She tapped her fingers lightly against the keyboard. “If I were a password that Takemura came up with…what would I be?”

Johnny leaned towards her and placed his left hand on the back of the chair in which she sat, and said, _‘Try “V”.’_

“No way,” she said with a small laugh. “He’d never do that.”

She typed _‘V’_ into the code box and pressed enter.

_Please wait._

_Please wait._

_Please wait._

_INCORRECT._

_‘Fuck.’_ Johnny patted his hand against the chair. _‘Thought that might actually work for a second there._ _What about “Valérie”?’_

“Hmm…”

_Please wait._

_Please wait._

_Please wait._

_INCORRECT._

“Nope. Not that, either.”

_‘Guess you’re not as important as you thought.’_

“I think Takemura has better things to do than make his password my name. If Saburo Arasaka’s bodyguard can’t come up with a password better than something like 12345 or PASSWORD, then that would be bad. I think it would be worse if it _had_ been my name.”

From the hallway, sounds of careful footsteps echoed near imperceptibly into the room. V’s skin rippled in a rush of adrenaline and she turned in the chair to look frantically to Johnny.

“What’s that?” she whispered.

 _‘Someone’s coming.’_

Johnny disappeared and V stood from the chair, peering around the corner towards the door.

Johnny was now standing up to the door, on its left, sneaking quick looks out to see into the hallway, as if he actually had to avoid being seen. He held two fingers to his face and made a forward motion to V to indicate her to come closer.

V nodded, pulling Jackie’s gun out and setting her bag on the bed. She crossed the room and came up behind Johnny.

 _‘Jump out at 'em, V,'_ Johnny said. 

“What?" she exclaimed quietly. "Why?”

_''Cause it’d be funny.’_

“What if it’s the cops?” 

_‘Then we’ll run. Fast.’_

“I don’t know," V said. "I don’t think it’s such a good idea.”

_‘Do it.’_

“No.”

_‘Do it.’_

“No.”

_‘Do it.’_

“Alright!”

Johnny smiled widely and they switched places, squishing themselves to the wall in faux spy mode. V peeked out into the hall and saw nobody there. She crossed out of the room, gun at the ready, and approached the next corner, to the left. The footsteps were coming up the hall where they had entered from.

She took a quiet breath and jumped out, gun facing towards whatever was there.

“Gotcha!” she said.

Standing before her, aiming her down in the sights of a revolver – was Takemura.

V lowered her gun immediately and halted on the spot. “Goro?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

“後輩?” _{Kohai}_ he asked exasperatedly, lowering his own gun. “I had almost shot you.”

“Thank you for not,” she said, mildly stunned and unable to think of anything else to say.

“Are you alright?” he asked gravely, considering her face and gauging her reaction. 

“Uh…yeah,” she said confusedly. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

“I had feared they’d caught you.”

“What?” she asked, looking around them at the certainly empty apartment building. “Why? How would you… _what?”_

“V,” he asked seriously. “Why are you here?”

“What?” she asked again. “Why are _you_ here? I was here first. What are _you_ even doing here?”

“I was concerned that you were in this location again.”

“How did you even know I was here, Goro?”

He said nothing, so she repeated herself, more firmly.

“How did you know where I was, Goro?”

Still speaking nothing in response for a heavy moment of quietness, he then reached out and grasped her left arm, gripping it in his right and turning it to reveal her inner-elbow. He pressed two fingers of his left hand into the space.

“Tracker,” he said.

V stared at her own arm, taking a few seconds of consideration to digest this news. Takemura released her arm and she held it out before herself, then reaching to touch at the skin herself.

“When did you put it on me?” she asked, attempting to feel the device but being unable to find it in any physical perceptibility.

“When you were in your ripperdoc’s clinic following your death at the hands of Dexter DeShawn. This is when I place it on you.”

“My ‘death’,” V repeated, slight breathlessness. She was quiet, still looking to her arm. “Strange to hear it referred to like that.”

“What is it that you are thinking, V?”

She looked up. “Can it be removed?” she asked, holding steady in her gazing regard of him.

“Yes,” he said calmly, bowing his head slightly in the affirmative.

“Who else knows about it?” she asked.

“Only I.”

“Good.”

They both somewhat tersely shuffled on the spot.

“Is this an upsetting revelation, Valérie?”

“No…” She exhaled heavily through her nose. “No, it’s…I hate to say it, but…it’s sort of comforting. What if I _had_ been in danger? You would have known. In a way, thanks? Is that strange?”

He looked at her seriously, though less intense than before. “If Arasaka has not forced you to be here," he asked, "why have you returned, V?”

“I was just curious. I wanted to know how you’d been living.”

She gestured back towards the room and walked through the doorway again. He followed her, heading back to the place where he’d been staying.

“You had a pretty decent little thing goin’ on here, Goro.” She flopped onto the bed. Johnny was gone now. “I mean, of course, living in an abandoned building may not be exactly something you’d get excited about, but you weren’t suffering as much as I imagined.”

“I did my best.”

“You left your laptop here.” She pointed towards it where it sat in the corner. “And some clothes. And some guns.”

“I certainly left in a hurry, as you are well aware, V.”

“You say my name a lot when you speak, Goro.”

“As if you did not just say _my_ name, as well, Valérie. I think that it is both of us who are using the other’s name with a certain frequency.”

“How’s…Hanako?” V asked, changing the subject to something which had been weighing heavily on her mind. She was picking at the edge of the comforter on the bed and twisting it between her fingers.

“She is well,” he said, and V nodded.

“That’s good,” she said.

“Yes.”

V looked up at him, and asked, “Is she…upset with us, about what happened?”

“No.” Takemura shook his head. “Not to my knowledge. Hanako-sama is an admirably reasonable woman. She understands that our measures, while overzealous and caustic, were necessary. Yorinobu must not be allowed to slip through our hands.”

“So…will you tell me where you’re staying now?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It is dangerous, V.” He sat to her right on the bed and she rolled onto her left side, hand holding her head up, facing him.

“I cannot divulge these details," he continued. "Surely we press against the boundaries of our safety enough.”

He looked across her as she lay there, and asked, “Why have you come to this horrible place dressed this way, V?”

She peered down at her own self for a moment and picked up a pinch of fabric. “I was on my way to breakfast with a friend when I happened to pass by,” she said. “And, well, curiosity got the better of me.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Well…you look…erm…remarkably decent. Considering the circumstances.”

“Mm,” V said, thinking on that sort-of compliment. “I’ll take it.”

“This dress,” he said, gesturing towards her. “What is its name?”

“Hanfu,” she said. “Based on traditional clothes of the Han people in China. But…it’s a bit more modern, now. A little shorter. More colorful. Less…formal. My aunt made it for me.”

“Mhm. Yes. The yukata from before was a vision of my culture upon you. I can see you much more clearly in this different dress.”

“More clearly?”

“I think that I understand you better to see you in something of your own choosing.”

V smiled at this and looked out to the room to the various electronic items scattered about.

“I saw that you had power here," she pointed out. "The lights are still on, in places.”

“It was with great luck that a generator was available to me.”

“No other squatters?” she asked.

“None that I was aware," he said. "There is a certain…unnerving-ness, that this building emanates. I believe others are kept away by that. I, however, was left with few options.”

"Lucky you, then," V said with a small smile. She held out her right hand towards him and ran her fingertips along the inside of his jacket.

"Yes," he said, watching her with bated breath where she had reached out to him. "Lucky me."

V pulled her hand away and rolled back onto her stomach, left arm falling towards the floor off the bed. She felt something touch her hand and she shuffled her hand around beneath the bed, grasping a few magazines which were placed there. She pushed back up from the floor and sat up upon the bed, spreading the magazines out before herself.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, running her hand along the glossy covers of what she now saw were from a handful of different pornographic publications. “Engaging reading material?”

Takemura reached his hand out to take them away, saying quickly, “V, that is…”

She covered them with her arms and blocked his efforts to get to them.

“Nothing to be embarrassed about,” she said.

She picked them up and stood on the bed, its springs making the mattress ripple beneath her as she moved closer to the headboard away from Takemura.

“V, please,” he said.

“What?” she asked. “I’m just looking. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Please, V,” he said desperately, but with as much Goro professionalism as he could muster. “Spare me the mocking.”

“I’m not gonna mock you. I live in a city where I have to look at Sasha Devon’s three-mouthed poster every day on every corner. I’ve watched that braindance at least four times. It’s no big deal.”

She flipped through the pages earnestly, dramatically scrutinizing their contents. Takemura could only look on in embarrassed horror.

V clicked her tongue in chide and shook her head.

“I don’t know, Goro,” she said. “All these beautiful young ladies. I think you might have a type.”

_“V.”_

Folding the handful of pages she held on the left behind the right side, she turned the magazine around and held it out towards him. “I think this one looks like me,” she said. “What do you think?”

He made another move to grab it away from her and she held her arms away and then jumped off the bed onto the floor, dodging past him and sprinting to the red couch sitting just outside the little bedroom nook. She stepped up on the couch. 

"V," Takemura said, following her out into the open area. He watched her amusedly where she stood, bouncing slightly on the cushions as she shifted from foot to foot.

“What? Don’t want me to know what you do when I’m not around?”

She flipped wildly through the pages and stopped on a random one, holding it out again for him to see as she attempted to dodge his hands' reach.

“I think this one’s my favorite,” she said. “Think I should take it home and put it on my wall?”

She turned the magazine sideways and a fold-out page fell out lengthwise. 

“H-” She laughed. “How’d she even put her leg up like that? Looks painful. I don’t think I could do that.”

“V, please.” Takemura held his forehead at the temples with his right thumb and pointer finger. “Do not make me endure any further ridicule.”

She jumped down from the couch and stepped closely towards him, to which he stood up straighter and looked down at her. Her eyes peeked up through her eyelashes.

“Did you think about me?” she asked deliberately sweetly.

She quickly flipped through the pages back to the one that looked like her. “I mean, I’m not making any assumptions, but this page is _definitely_ dog-eared, so what I’m hearing is that you think about me when you-”

_“V!”_

She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Goro, Goro, Goro. What I’m hearing is that your type is definitely young women with _fragile, dominatable little bodies."_ She raised her eyebrows with a grin. "Care to defend yourself?"

“Valérie, goodness.” His cheeks were flushed. “Please. Cease and desist.”

She tapped on the magazine and said, “Your bookmark of this page tells me everything I need to know, Goro. I think I could psychologically evaluate your tastes here. Bet there’s something that could be said.”

“V. I am serious,” he said, though he couldn’t help but smile and made no further effort to remove the scandalous object from her grasp. He crossed his arms across his chest.

“Would you say…” V flipped to the right with her thumb, releasing a flurry of pages to the left. “…that the appeal of a younger woman has anything to do with not having been able to fully live your teenage and young-adulthood to their fullest capacities?”

She circled around him, finger to her chin in pretend thought.

“Do you enjoy the admiration a younger woman has for you? Looking up to you like, perhaps…a guardian? Mm.”

"V, please."

“Does it make you feel just a _little_ bit sexy dirty to think you’re doing something you maybe shouldn’t be?”

“V, be serious,” he said calmly, still unable to fight a smile from appearing on his face. “Relent.”

“Alright, alright.” She flopped the pages of the magazine shut and held them out for him. “Here you go.”

“V," he said, taking hold of the material and shuffling them neatly together. "You bring out the awkward young man in me that was stifled so long ago.”

“Ah-ha!” she exclaimed. “So, I was right?”

“Mhm.” Takemura shook his head at her in humor. “Certainly, they will make a psychologist of you yet. Your skills of observation are unrivaled.”

“That’s right.”

V flopped back to the couch, this time sitting, and patted the seat beside her. 

"Take a seat," she said. "Please enter V's Psychiatric Clinic."

Takemura tossed the magazines onto a pile of other junk and sat to her right, but as soon as he did, a sound came from his phone. 

He pulled it from his pocket and unlocked the screen. V leaned over his shoulder to watch what he was doing.

“This phone is abhorrent," he said, tapping annoyedly on the screen. "I have been making booty-calls all morning.”

V laughed immediately and then covered her mouth with her hand when Takemura looked to her in confusion.

She lowered her hand, struggling to not smile and asked, “You’ve been doing _what_ now?”

He was giving her a judgmentally concerned expression. “Why do you laugh? I have been performing accidental telephone calls.”

“Oh!” V said, leaning back against the couch and laughing. “Oh, you mean ‘butt-dial’? Oh my god. That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.”

“They are not the same thing?”

“Mm-mm. I’m afraid not,” she said, sitting back up straight and patting Takemura on the back consolingly.

Takemura shook his head and put his phone back into his pocket. “English is very confusing,” he said.

V pulled her legs up onto the couch and sat more comfortably. “What’s the most confusing thing you’ve heard?” she asked.

“English idioms,” he said. “I do not understand them. You have these sayings. Things like, ‘I would not hurt a fly’. But, why do these sentences never occur in the affirmative? What if someone _does_ want to hurt a fly? English does not allow me to express this sentiment. There are too many contradictions. Why does a house burn _up_ in flames as it burns _down?_ Why does something go _on_ by going _off?”_

She laughed, and it felt full. Felt easy. Simple. This small happiness made her heart swell at the domesticity, but it was soon crushed beneath the part of her that couldn’t let small happinesses survive.

“You know, Goro.” V lingered on his name in the air before continuing. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Yes. Thinking.” He nodded affirmatively. “This is something I would recommend.”

“Oh, hardy-har.” She leaned against his shoulder and then resettled in her seat, wringing her hands slowly. “But I’m serious.”

He watched her hands, and asked more calmly, “About what were you thinking, V?”

“When I was a little girl,” she said, halting on those two words like they were a knife in her throat, “my father used to read me books about the Steel Dragons. I know, biographies as bedtime stories for a nine-year-old? Thanks, dad.”

“Kōtetsu no Ryū? They were known in America?” Takemura asked. “This is to my surprise.”

“No,” she said. “In China. The Steel Dragons were very famous in the time after 2020. My father, in his childhood in China…he looked up to them. Many poor children saw the Steel Dragons as, well, superheroes, in a way. It was exciting to think that somebody could turn against everything they’d ever known and fight for what was right. And have a cool name.”

“Hm…” Takemura considered this. “Kōtetsu no Ryū do not carry this complimentary a reputation in majority Japan.”

“Yorinobu in the Steel Dragons…” V said, staring at the floor, “…isn’t the Yorinobu I saw at Konpeki Plaza that night.”

Takemura shuffled at her side. “What is your meaning?” he asked.

She twisted her mouth in thought, and said, “Do you know why my father liked Yorinobu Arasaka?”

“Why?”

“Because it gave him hope to believe that someone who came from a place of privilege might still have the humanity left to choose better for the people who couldn’t fight for themselves.” She paused. Breathed. “Whether or not this was true, I can’t say. But I know my father believed it.”

“We believe many things when we feel out of control,” Takemura offered.

“It may not have been through my own seeking him out,” V said, “but Yorinobu Arasaka was a childhood hero of mine.”

Takemura noticeably moved at her side, and she could tell by the shift in the air that he had not received these words pleasantly.

“V,” he said. “I am unsure of this conversation.”

She turned to him and made deliberate eye-contact.

“Yorinobu Arasaka made my father believe that anything was possible,” she said. “If the world’s richest man had a son who would turn on him in bloody rebellion, then my father, a poor boy living in rural China, could be whoever he wanted to be. Your lot in life didn’t determine your choices.”

“Yorinobu Arasaka was an insurgent,” Takemura said defensively, unable to bite back the biased judgment in his tone. “Not an inspiration.”

“My father was a first-generation immigrant,” V said. “And he came here because of those feelings; believing in anything. And what he believed was that even when he was too poor to keep the lights on in our apartment, anything was possible because the freedom to choose would make it that way, somehow. Yorinobu Arasaka inspired my father his whole life to choose his own destiny.”

“Clearly he was led astray,” Takemura added, and that cut a bit harshly. His personal opinion on the matter of the disgraced Arasaka son was clearly flaring.

“Every poor man sees himself as a millionaire down on his luck,” she said. “That’s the religion that being an American promises you. Hope. And my dad died a believer.”

She wrung her hands more anxiously, and then pressed them into the space between her crisscrossed legs to attempt to stop.

“I still think that someday, he’ll call me,” she said. “And I’ll go home to our little room in Little China. And he’ll be there, folding his little paper dogs. And I’ll sit down next to him, little again, like I used to be, and I’ll pick up a piece of paper, and I’ll make little dogs too. And we’ll live a little life. And I’ll forget what it was like to be big. Bigger than myself. To be fading.”

"V." Takemura placed a hand on her knee. "I am sorry."

“The tales of Yorinobu Arasaka taught my dad the moral injustice of capitalism unchecked," she said, "of the free market allowed to shove its monetary values like religion on the public. But my father came from beneath a shrouded communist regime in the place he was born. And he lacked the foresight to predict what a dangerous world he'd be walking into when he moved to California.”

"How do you mean?" he asked.

“My dad was allured by the freedom that America promised," she said, "and he conflated that with the Steel Dragons’ values. But, Yorinobu was a notable nationalist, and I think this is too often forgotten. Yorinobu didn’t hate Japan. He wouldn’t have wanted to save it from his father if that wasn’t true. My father believed wrongly that what the Steel Dragons represented was freedom from any government, freedom to rule your own self. America promised this. But this was not the Steel Dragons’ purpose. Thus, the Tyger Claws were born. And though they formed from the remnant ideals of the Steel Dragons, they're a shallow, spineless mimicry of what once was.”

"Your city's Tyger Claws have come from Kōtetsu no Ryū?" 

"I believe they did," she said. "But they're nothing at all what the Steel Dragons were. They're vicious, and self-serving, and they claim rebellion but they cower beneath the protection of Arasaka. They're an empty, morally corrupt _copy_ of the foundations Yorinobu once laid in Japan."

“You seem to speak from a place of personal involvement." Takemura said. "Do I assume correctly?"

“My father...my father worked for them." She stared down at her lap again, clutching the smooth fabric of her dress. "I think he idealized them because they reminded him of what he’d liked about the Steel Dragons. But they were cruel, and cutting, and not being Japanese made us unwelcome. But he became something of a mechanic for them, and in turn, they left us alone. For…” She hesitated, and her throat felt swelled. “…for the time that he was around, at least.”

“V,” Takemura asked, “where is this story going?”

“The cherry blossoms in the market in Japantown; none of them are real." She held her hand out before them, made a fist, and then released it to the air. "In the same way that the Tyger Claws are a mirror of the Steel Dragons. But, how can you tell a replication from the real thing? How close can a copy be until it’s no longer distinguishable from reality?”

"Do you truly seek an answer, V?" Takemura asked, confusedly, but V cut off his wonder at this with a proposition of her own that she had been biting off for a while.

“I don’t believe that Yorinobu Arasaka was there that night," she said.

Takemura shifted at her side and he was silent for a few tense beats. He readjusted his position and rubbed his hands together in terse consideration.

“And?” he asked. “Who do you believe _was_ there?”

“I have a few theories,” she said, choosing her words carefully.

“The first being?”

“Kei Arasaka.”

“The older brother?” Takemura scoffed. “Not possible. Kei Arasaka perished in 2022.”

V hummed in reply, nodded, but offered as a counter, “Well…that’s what they say, anyway.”

“You are suggesting they have lied?”

She nodded. “Kei Arasaka hasn’t been seen since the war. An… _acquaintance,_ of mine – she met him once, a long time ago. She and her merc buddies snuck into Arasaka Tower and convinced him that seppuku was the only thing that could restore his honor at failing to lead his father’s company away from the Fourth Corporate War. Convinced him to give himself to Soulkiller.”

_“You are lying.”_

“What reason would I have to lie?”

“You are making outlandish claims and I am not following your reasoning.”

“Okay,” she said. “It’s like this.” She placed her hands out before her in front of them. “Yorinobu is dead.” She shook her left hand. “Let’s say his rebellion was crushed by his father. Kei is also dead.” She shook her right hand. “Both have been Soulkilled, theoretically. Now…take Kei’s soul from Mikoshi and place it inside of Yorinobu’s body.” She crossed her hands at the wrist to switch which side they were on. “Done. Yorinobu is ‘alive’, and Kei is ‘dead’.”

“And the real Yorinobu’s soul?” he asked. “Where is it?”

“Still in Mikoshi,” she said. “I don’t believe they would destroy it. No.” She shook her head. “It’s still out there somewhere.”

Takemura brushed her off with a wave of his hand. “Your theory is weak,” he said. “Kei was not against the Arasakas. What reason would he have to attack them and kill Saburo?”

“That’s what I couldn’t figure out.”

“See?” he said. “You are talking us through impossibilities.”

“But I have another theory.” 

“Hopefully better than the first.”

“Maybe he isn’t Kei. Maybe Yorinobu is some kind of clone.”

“You are speaking conspiratorial nonsense. I do not believe for a second.”

“Do you ever think it’s strange how much Yorinobu looks like his father? If you put their pictures side-by-side, they look like young and old versions of the exact same person.”

“They are related by blood. I do not believe you have a point.”

“Hanako doesn’t look nearly as close to Saburo as Yorinobu did. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

“Yorinobu has always looked as such." Takemura shook his head. "Would people not have noticed a change in him post-2020?”

“Arasaka has all the money in the world," V said. "If they wanted to bury something from 57 years ago – they could. They could make the public believe that Yorinobu had always looked like that.”

“V, why would a Yorinobu who is _not_ Yorinobu kill his father?”

“That night in Konpeki, Adam Smasher knew I was there. He looked right at me. So why didn’t he stop me?”

“Stopping you would have prevented Yorinobu from retaining his only moment alone with his father.”

“Sure, but…don’t you think it’s strange that Saburo only brought _one_ bodyguard…” She pointed at him. “…to meet with a son who had tried to kill him in the past?”

“Saburo-sama has always traveled in my company near exclusively.”

“And don’t you think that’s dangerous? One person to protect the most famous man in the world?”

Takemura looked down at this, so V continued. 

“I think Saburo walked into Konpeki that night knowing he would die," she said.

“If this faux Yorinobu theory is true," Takemura asked, "why would he be working against Saburo? Would he not be a puppet of Arasaka?”

“Maybe…and this is another theory…maybe he _was_ Soulkilled, a long time ago. And what really happens to someone when they’re Soulkilled, Goro? They’re them, and then, an engram. And that engram goes back into the body. But they’re dead. And alive. Now at the same time. Yorinobu 2.0. Somebody who, for all intents and purposes, _was_ Yorinobu. But…it’s like…if you could turn a person into a computer software. You could make it behave exactly as that person…but it would never _be_ them. So, this…this Yorinobu 2.0., it would pretend to be him… but it would never have the _soul_ of the original.”

“You believe that Yorinobu Arasaka is an A.I.?”

“No." She shook her head. "I don’t believe Artificial Intelligence exists. Because the name itself is a paradox. If the intelligence is artificial, then it isn’t intelligent. It’s scripted. True intelligence is manic, freeform, impossible to catch. No. I don’t believe that he’s an A.I." She sighed. "I believe that he’s just…an I. A human. With no soul.”

“I am still not understanding why this new Yorinobu would not be beneath the control of his father," Takemura said.

“I think…I think they must’ve thought they _cured_ him," V said. "By killing his soul, they killed the reason he had to turn against them. But, after so many years dormant, I think those memories of who Yorinobu used to be were now weighing in strange, inexplicable ways on the new Yorinobu. A memory of a thought. A memory of a feeling. And, as does happen when a computer has a virus; it malfunctions. It goes rogue, so to speak. I believe they thought they crushed him the first time. And now that it’s gone wrong again, Saburo Arasaka saw an opportunity. But for what…I don’t know.”

“V, you are suggesting that the Secure-Your-Soul program is not real? You are implying that to become an engram, you must die?”

“You can’t extract a person," she said. "It’s impossible. A person isn’t tangible. You could never make a replica of someone. Ever. No amount of money or science could ever capture the strange, chaotic beauty of being human. So, no. I don’t believe that Relic holds people’s souls. I think that when you die, you’re dead. And you go wherever people go when they die. But you most certainly don’t go to Mikoshi. Whatever program version of you is printed on the engram? I would be terrified to meet that version of me, if she was ever created.”

“And the engram in your head? You do not believe in its humanity?”

“I don’t know. How can you tell a person that they aren’t real if they believe they are? Is believing in something enough to make it true? If we can’t know anyone else’s mind…we can’t ever prove that anyone is real except ourself.”

“V…if this is all truly possible…to what end? What is it that you believe the Arasakas are trying to do?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Because I don’t know what Saburo Arasaka wants. Do you?”

“I-” He hesitated. “I…I cannot say that I do.”

Takemura looked forward, away from V, and out into the room. He said nothing, and the way he sat there silently made V wish she could feel his mind the way she felt Johnny's. 

“V…did you know that Dashi and Mikoshi are related?”

“No,” V said. “I don’t believe I did. They are?”

“Dashi is a float which people ride on and pull. It is through the great effort of a strong team of collaborators that it should be able to move. By contrast, Mikoshi is a float which people hold on their backs in honor of the gods. Mikoshi cannot be ridden on. Dashi is inclusive. Mikoshi is exclusive. Dashi is a team effort between the people on the top and the people on the bottom. Riders and movers. Mikoshi is only people on the bottom who are not allowed on the top, but must bear its weight.”

“Hm. There’s a lot to think about there, Goro,” V said.

“You have given me this," he said. "The lot to think about.”

“Sounds like something’s on your mind.” V placed her hand upon his back lightly. “You want to talk about it?”

“No, V,” he said. “Not today. But…perhaps, another time.”

“You sure?”

“No,” he said again. “No, I am not sure. I am not sure of much, anymore. For so long, I felt assured in what I understood about my life. I do not feel this way anymore.”

“Does it feel like a relief?”

“A relief?” he asked. “How is my confusion a relief?”

“Not knowing things,” V said, “I think it can be beautiful. To be ignorant. To be free. To be unbound by what you thought you knew.”

“This not knowing…it is relieving to you?” He turned to her, angling his body slightly more in her direction. “I do not understand this.”

Reaching her hands out considerately, she placed them over his own hands where they lay near his knees.

“I like not knowing,” she said. “Because not knowing means that I don’t have to be worried. You can’t be worried about what you don’t know.”

“I am worried I do not know the meaning on this conversation,” he said, and V laughed.

“It’s okay, Goro,” she said. “It’s okay not to know.”

“That is a difficult idea, V.” He took one hand from beneath hers and placed it overtop their little pile of hands. “I think that it will take me a great time to be comfortable with this.”

“Would you like to join me for breakfast?” V asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I think that I would.”

 _“Come on, then,"_ she said, standing and holding her hand out for him to grab. _"Let’s go.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You actually really can return to Takemura's room at the abandoned building and he canonically does have porn magazines under the bed lmao. I recommend popping down there to check it out and see what he had there because I was surprised at how decent it was. I believe that you can get back to the apartments by way of the Republic & Vine fast travel point located in the far-right corner of Vista del Rey. When you load in, its to your immediate right.


	11. I Wonder If You Think That I Could Never Help You Fly

C H A P T E R E L E V E N

_I Wonder If You Think That I Could Never Help You Fly_

A caged bird. What does it do?

It sits. It sings. It waits for its person to come home.

But it does not fly.

The cage is present to keep the bird safe, but the bird within cannot be free if the door is always closed. Safe within, but never without. In a symbiotic relationship between home and homebody, who truly benefits?

V did not know who more gained from their arrangement.

Her. Johnny. Her. Johnny. The man was a parasite that ate her from the inside out, devouring and claiming as his biology overwrote the lines of human code embedded in her brain. Her body was his new home, his _forever_ home, if Relic had anything to say about it.

And yet, without the bird, the cage has no meaning. No function. A bird is always a bird. But a cage is only a cage when there is a bird inside. Otherwise, it is only an empty box. An object. A purposeless token. If Johnny were her bird, and he flew away, she would no longer play cage to him. She would be devoid of the forced responsibility of shelter.

Many days…it was difficult even to get out of bed.

She was slipping, slowly; an avalanche descending the mountain of her mental health at a rapid pace, unstuck from gravity. And Johnny – the final snowflake that snapped the branch.

Gravity. That felt all the heavier, those days. A sense of falling. Of rising. Of floating away. She could feel Johnny’s weight in her own body, and walked with his legs as if they were her very own, rose her arms to the sky as if they were carried upwards by the man himself. But how could two people stand in the same place at once?

Some days, V would awaken to a…memory. A memory of a woman. A woman she was supposed to know. Or, a woman she _did_ know, but couldn’t remember. This woman was supposed to be at her side, and yet, turning in her bed, there was never a woman there at all. And then she would slip away, this woman. Recede back into the far corners of V’s mind again, nestled safely somewhere she couldn't recognize.

Standing in the shower, the water ran over her, throwing itself across her skin like carefully procured rain. Her own personal thunderstorm, warm and secure, protected by the littleness of her bathroom. Tracing the walls around her and chasing droplets as they cascaded downwards towards the floor, she imagined them racing again, as she so often did. Steam rolled around her and filled the glass to her left with a misted blurriness, a kaleidoscope of the colors of the sink that lay on the other side. 

_‘V?’_

Her brain was calling to her, echoed in the masculine vibration of _His_ voice.

Sometimes, he sounded like _this_. And other times, like...this. _Faded_ one way and **corporeal** the other, her mind drifted manically between the two versions of him as quickly as wind blowing a two-way door in and out.

In and out.

In and out.

In...

And out.

Johnny both pushed and pulled her, swung the doors open from the unlocked cages and fences she had built around herself. He repelled and attracted her, polar opposites and yet, exactly identical.

She could see him appear on the opposite side of the steamed shower glass, his black hair silhouetting his form noticeably in a charcoal entanglement of darkened colors.

“V,” he said again, this time more real; realness she could cut with a knife and draw blood that ran red.

When she was at her lowest, he was at his strongest, reaping her wounds like a vulture in the desert. A starving animal would always feed.

“Yes?” she asked quietly, faintly, her fingers still following those drops of water, one after the other, down they went. Down, down, down, falling eventually unseen to the drain.

“Whatcha feelin’?” he asked.

She could see his bleary, shadowed figure tapping the frosted glass absentmindedly. He was feeling finicky again, she could tell. Agitated. Ticking. A clock wound too tightly. The needing for something he couldn't have in his non-existent form pulled his nerves like a rubber-band that would snap back soon enough.

“Just…havin’ a day,” she said, and released a shallow breath. “That’s all.”

He hummed a near-silent _Mhm_ in response, though said nothing else.

V leaned against the shower wall, standing just outside of the water’s reach of her. It was a comfort to simply have it running, even if it were not rushing over her skin.

“Can I…ask somethin’, V?”

“Yeah?” she said. Her arms were wrapped around herself.

“Don’t think I’m really me?” he asked, and he stopped moving, no longer tapping the glass in distracted fidgeting.

“What?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

“You told Takemura you don’t think I’m really me,” he said. “So...what am I?”

“I didn’t say you weren’t really you.” She looked down at the shower drain. “I said I don’t know if you’re really _Johnny.”_

“Well, what does that mean, V?”

“It means I…I don’t know if you’re really Johnny Silverhand from 2023. But you’re still you, whoever you are.” She watched his silhouette move around on the other side, the way his shoulders rolled, his arms shifted positions. “Maybe the old Johnny and the new Johnny are the same person. Maybe not. But you’re here, so...that’s who you are.”

“Maybe I’m Robert.”

She stunted. Wavered. Felt like a sheet on a clothesline in the wind. Solid but foldable. Whole but fluid. The closest to liquid a physical object could ever be.

“Robert?” she asked, and he breathed outwards from lungs she could feel pumping hollowly within her own chest.

“My name,” he said. “My real one. Robert John Linder.”

He faced towards her, his face out of focus through the water and glass partition. “What about that asshole, huh?" he said. "Maybe that’s the real me.”

She nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe the real you was Robert, and the you I know is Johnny.”

He placed his fingers up to touch the glass again, and asked, “But you can’t tell which one?”

“Not yet,” she said.

“Figures.” He crossed his arms across his chest. “Well, lemme know if ya figure it out. Might give us some answers.”

Somehow, she'd known that name. 

Robert John Linder. 

Somewhere, far, far within...that moniker had been printed like a birthmark in places that it could never be wiped from. A permanent marker of who he was that stuck itself forever to the idea of him. 

She may not have been able to come up with it herself, but upon hearing it, it felt as known to her as if it were her very own.

“Johnny…?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to come in here with me?”

“What?” he asked. His guarded pride fell briefly, revealing a man that could genuinely be taken by surprise.

He regained composure quickly, tutting, “Mhm. Knew you couldn’t resist me.”

“Not like that,” she said quietly. “I just…I don’t want to be alone. I feel _so_ alone.”

He said nothing for a short while, and if she wasn’t looking, she may have thought he’d apparated away, disappeared back to his secret hiding spots in her mind.

Moving away from the glass, he faded from view, and she wondered if he’d left the room. But then, she could hear the metallic clatter of belt buckles and necklaces flowing into the soft patter of clothes hitting the tiled floor.

The midnight mess of his hair peaked around the corner to reveal his face, unsure in a way in which she could never have expected from the man. For someone so confident, seemingly, she wouldn’t have thought he’d be capable of basic, tentative humility.

“You okay with this?” he asked.

She nodded, looking to him and making sure she held his eyes with her own, and said, “Yes. I-I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t. It’s okay…I’m...okay.”

Stepping around the corner, bared to her for the very first time, she gazed into the expanse of his skin like a galaxy covered in lengthy, silvery scars like constellations.

He was fit, but thin; somebody who clearly fit the modus operandi of a man who’d taken care in his appearance yet still lived a life of hard drugs and alcohol in lieu of meals. Multiple healed lacerations slashed his left ribs and side, stretching from his back to his navel as if he’d been deeply scratched or cut by something with multiple blades. On his right ribs, the tattoo of a woman with a blindfold being bitten on the neck by a snake, the words _“INJUSTICE FOR ALL”_ written across a banner beneath her. Three swords pointed towards her from below the writing. Lady Justice.

Burn scars scattered across the left of his chest, snaking up his neck, though faded from time, and V wondered if he'd been caught in some kind of explosion during the war.

He had kept his dog-tags on.

His chest was unavoidable, being visually so clear right before her, but she intentionally avoided looking to any other part of him. This wasn’t meant to be a tell-all of their bodies’ vices and secrets. She wasn’t here to see him in that way.

She said nothing, and they simply stared at one another for a very long time that truly was no time at all. To only his face, she regarded him, glancing from one little corner of him like the surface of the moon, looking for the answers to the universe in his mystery.

He stepped towards her carefully, and she maintained her standing place, not retreating from him.

Another step.

Another step.

Another.

He was close, a foot away, still remaining with a modicum of respectful distance from her personal space. He raised his brow in question, daring to ask, _how much closer could I be?_

His left arm raised and placed itself gently against V’s shoulder, the back of his hand touching her skin, and trailing down her new prosthetic. The feeling of a person on that limb, it was not like her old, human arm. It was distant, yet, couldn’t be more intense. The prosthetic overcompensated for the lack of human nerves by cranking sensitivity up to a thousand, vibrating through her like it was almost a private intimacy to have her arm touched.

“Okay?” he asked.

There was a vulnerability in his voice which she had never known from him. The revelation he had broken from her that day in her apartment had softened him like a cracked ribcage, revealing his heart inside which she had not previously known. Perhaps this was the cage she held him within. A ribcage. And her heart, a bird. Her heart. His heart. One and the same.

“Okay,” she said softly.

He closed the final distance and pulled her into a hug, clearly unable to help himself from experiencing physicality in anything but fast and impulsive waves of emotion.

She was momentarily taken aback, but had welcomed him into her space and thus was unafraid of his actions.

His arms entombed her tightly, fiercely searching for some kind of comfort he himself needed just as much as she did. He made a soft sound in his throat like a far away, almost cry that wanted to reveal itself, but she knew he wouldn’t appreciate her mentioning it, so she did not.

She raised her arms to his back and linked her hands together behind him in clasp, pressing her cheek into his chest, near the jutting piece of metal which began at his left collarbone and shot out to his silver arm.

“Still okay?” he asked, and she nodded against him.

“Still okay,” she said. “I don’t want to be alone right now. I’m afraid to be…to be by myself.”

“You aren’t alone, V,” he mumbled into her hair, raising his hand to cradle her head. “I’m always here whether you hate me or not.”

“I don’t hate you,” she said. “I wish I could, though. Then this would be easy.”

He pulled away, hands holding her face to have her look at him. Without his sunglasses, with hair now stringing in wettened strands, he looked like just a man. Not Johnny Silverhand. Just…the person inside.

“Easy how?” he asked.

She tightened her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his shoulder again, thinking of the way his skin seemed to feel against her face, and said, “Easy to get rid of you.”

His arms tightened around her just the same and she felt _held_. Even if it was all happening in her own mind, it was real to her.

He asked, “Don’t want me to go?”

She shook her head against him.

_No. No. Never._

She never wanted him to leave. How could you say goodbye to yourself?

“You feel so real,” she said, tracing his silver arm with her own white metal one. “Like a person. I’ve never been close to anyone like this, physically.”

“I’m not really here, though, V,” he said. A wedge between them, forcefully added. Regretfully maintained.

She closed her eyes, hiding from the thought, and asked “Does it matter? I don’t care if you’re real. You're real to me.”

He held her head with his hands, and somewhere deep inside, she knew that what she was feeling didn't truly exist. That his touch was only a programmed concept of touch existing in her mind only, and yet, there he was. So real. So tangible.

She couldn’t readily accept that it all meant nothing.

They stayed still for a long while, water crashing over them in a soft mist – if a mist could ever crash – holding one another as close as was possible without occupying the same space. He hummed quietly and the rumble of his vocal box in his chest vibrated against her, and it felt like home. Felt like sounds she’d always known, because for all intents and purposes, she had lived his life just as much as her own, and knew the tune without knowing it at all.

He would run his fingertips up and down her back slowly, brushing his thumb over her shoulder-blades and to her neck, hugging her tightly and releasing, trailing her face, rinse and repeat. Any kind of touch that could provide a semblance of comfort and care.

He made something like a sound, an almost spoken thought, and V looked up at him curiously. His face was looking off, momentarily, and then to her, to her eyes.

He placed his right hand on her face and brushed her lip with his thumb, then settled on her cheek gently.

“Do you want more?” he asked seriously. Calmly. He held her like something breakable. Something that couldn’t touch the ground for fear of cracking.

“I don’t know,” she said. She placed her hands over his wrists where he held her face and held him back, looking up at him.

“Do you want me to make you feel good?” he asked. “Better?”

“No, Johnny,” she said tiredly. The warmth of the water was lulling. “This is enough.”

“Okay,” he said.

He pulled her into him again, holding her head to his chest this time, keeping her close.

As if they could ever be closer than sharing one mind.

“Sometimes it’s enough to just be there,” she mumbled against him.

“Enough?” he asked.

“Enough is perfect,” she said. “It’s plenty.”

* * * * *

Takemura had been training her for a few short weeks now, though V admittedly was unsure how much time exactly had passed.

Some days, she awoke to find herself months back, before the Relic, and would fail to recall any of what had happened. She would mentally plan her day with Jackie, Mama Welles, Misty…and then would slowly come to the realization that these plans could never come to fruition.

Jackie was not coming back. She could wait as long as she wanted. He would never be there.

Other days, she awoke in 2020. 2021. 2022. 2023. Johnny’s final memories, his final years; the freshest in his mind. In _her_ mind. She would remember significant players in his life; Rogue, Morgan Blackhand, Spider Murphy – among others she could not name, or whose faces were blurred behind the mental firewalls of Johnny’s psyche. Places she was un-allowed to visit.

All at once, she experienced four lives. The V of then and now. And the Johnny of then and now. Four separate people whose minds melded into one.

Pre-Relic V.

Current V.

Pre-Relic Johnny.

Current Johnny.

So little room in one mind for so many dramatically clashing personalities who fought for dominance across the endless battlefield of her brain.

“V?”

The thoughts in her mind fumbled; a dropped ball rolling away. She looked around the room.

She was in her apartment, yes. She should know that. Should remember that.

_What was she doing there again?_

Takemura stood across from her, sleeves rolled up on his expected white button down, exposing the metal of his limbs, the yakuza tattoos that snaked him.

“V,” he said again. “Does something trouble you?”

He held a simple sword in his right hand, and she became aware that in her own hand, she held a similar one. Her grip reaffirmed itself instinctively around the handle.

“When did we get here?” she asked. “What time is it?”

“We have been here for hours, V,” he said firmly. “It is nearly eleven PM. You are forgetting? This is not good.”

“And what day is it?”

“Thursday,” he said carefully.

She stared blankly at him, mouth slightly agape as she grasped at the words to reply. 

“V, how long have we known one another?”

“Huh?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

“I am looking only for a numerical answer. As quickly as you can think of one.”

“A month,” she said. “It’s been a month.”

“It has been two months, V,” he said.

“No, it hasn’t,” she said. “That can’t be true.”

“You were in a coma for three weeks. Then two weeks where we were together for many days. Then a week for your recovery after losing your arm. Then two in which we did not see one another. Then another. Nine weeks. Two months.”

“Two months?” she asked. It felt nauseating. “There’s no way.”

"This is upsetting?" he asked, nodded. "Use it."

"Use it to fight you?" 

"Show me just how angry this makes you," he said, beckoning her towards him with his left hand. "It is a terrible tragedy to lose one's memories. Take it out on me."

Breathing out deeply, she huffed her way into a better state of mind. Or, well, perhaps an angrier one. But at the very least, one which she was more aware of. 

She stepped towards him and he moved away. 

"You cannot just outright come to me," he said. "I have told you this many times. Do not approach me so obviously."

"I don't know how to fight you, Goro," she said, her tone rising more than she had intended. "I don't know what you want me to do. I can't fight like you."

"And yet you asked me to train you," he said with a taunting laugh. "Apparently you did not truly want this."

He slid his sword swiftly across the floor before she could catch it and slashed at her left ankle - enough to bump against her but not enough to do anything. He raised his brow at her intentionally.

He was making her feel something bubbling up, like rage, and she didn't like the way it burned. It didn't feel like her. And she knew it was Johnny inside. He was screaming in his cage. 

The sword in her hands was too heavy, really, and she realistically knew there was little to no chance she could ever overcome somebody as well-trained as Takemura. 

"Why are we using swords anyway?" she asked. "I don't think Adam Smasher's gonna joust with me."

"The sword teaches you to respect the art of war," he said. "A gun kills. It is not beauty."

"I'm not gonna need beauty when Adam Smasher's stepping on me," she said.

He laughed, haughty, and said, "Well. Yes. I suppose that is true."

Shaking off the humor, he reclaimed his seriousness and stood straight before her again, at the ready to defend any potential attempt at an attack.

She raised the sword to him and he easily blocked it, slashing it away with a heavy clash of metal on metal, pushing her back with the sheer force of just how hard he had bashed his sword to hers.

"Why are you trying so _hard?"_ she asked in frustration, having been shoved slightly back towards her storage room, her socked feet sliding across the carpet.

"You want me to let you win?" he asked, and laughed again. "This is not part of the arrangement."

V groaned and placed herself in front of him again. She pathetically raised the sword again and he blocked her. She stomped her feet lightly and stepped away from him. Johnny was throwing a fit inside and she could do nothing but feel it as her own. 

“Do not allow your emotions to overtake you,” Takemura said, raising his left hand out as if to subdue her tension with a mere motion. “Remain in control.”

She leaned against the sword as it pointed to the floor, heaving a breath to regain control. "But you told me to use my anger!"

"Use it," he said. "But do not let it become you. Your anger is a tool. It is not an identity."

“I need a break,” she begged, but he swept his own sword across the carpet and pushed hers out from under her, to which she stumbled forward.

“Yorinobu will not take breaks,” he commanded, taking a step back to allow her room to stand and prepare again. “Persevere.”

"Alright," she said faintly. "Alright."

“Channel your upset into your weapon,” he said, shrugging out his shoulders and standing resolute before her to reassess his control over the situation. “Do not allow me to gain the advantage. Do not allow me to overwhelm you.”

“Okay…okay.” She steadied her breaths. Her mind calmed. “I got it. I can do this.”

“You can’t.”

She made a face of hurt, unintended, automatically, and asked carefully, “Takemura?”

“You are weak,” he said.

“Ah.” She reaffirmed her stance and tightened her grip on her sword’s handle. “Trying to upset me. I got it.”

He shrugged emptily, and she wondered if perhaps he truly was frustrated with her.

Where once she had felt curiosity at the man’s experience as a bodyguard, there were times when she felt… _afraid_ , of him. Fearful of the concrete walls he formed around himself at the slightest breath that infringed on his privacy.

She swung towards him from the right, and he intercepted her blow with the block of his own weapon. The metals clanked together and cried out in shrill shrieks like nails on a chalkboard. He stepped to his left and she mimicked by stepping to her own left, swords still touched together.

“Anticipate my movements,” he said. They were slowly encircling one another like clockwork. “You need to know what moves I will make before I think even to make them myself.”

Twisting around her and pressing her sword away from being able to reach him, he trapped her from behind and roughly held his sword to press against hers so that her hands were preoccupied with maintaining the clash of their weapons and left her body defenseless. He held her roughly by the left shoulder, right hand holding his sword in what could have been the slitting of her neck had he actual intentions to maim and kill.

He slid his hand to the back of her neck and she was gone. Instantly. Gone. Shrunken into herself where she wished she could fly, but couldn’t, because she was so physically subdued. Her body wrung in waves of nerves and adrenaline. _Get away. Get away._ All she wanted was to _get away._ Everything was in fight or flight mode, but neither option was available to her as he pressed her down and prevented her from moving.

He shoved her to the floor, to her knees, and held her solidly in place. This was a common tactic of his. Disarming his opponent - her - by forcing her into immobility.

“Stop!” she cried. Everything felt like it wasn’t really happening. “Stop…”

“What?” he taunted with somewhat a vague, unfiltered humor, nudging against her with his shin where she knelt. “The enemy will not heed your begging.”

Staring at the floor beneath her, she dropped the sword from her grasp and it clattered down. She leaned and pressed her forehead to the floor and placed her hands over her head.

“V, please.” He removed his grip from her neck and stood up straight beside her. “Come now. I have not hit you that hard.”

She pulled in a breath and released it.

Pulled in a breath and released it.

Pulled in a breath…

And released it.

Something like an unintentional, uncontrollable weakness made itself known in her throat. A whimper. A sign that everything was not what she wished it would be. A sign, she thought, of her weakness.

“V…?” Takemura asked, his prior taunting mentorship lost entirely and replaced by the kind man for whom V had come to know as sweet and unsure.

She breathed in and out. In and out. Her eyes were closed and she was trying to think of anything but how tensely her skin was crawling. Words were beyond her.

“V?” he asked again, and knelt in front of her.

She could feel the air shuffling and the warmth of his body near her. A hand was placed tentatively over her own hands which held her head.

“V,” he said, “please tell me how I am to help you.”

"I-I don't know," she said, her voice a shattered whimper.

“I am sorry, V.”

He held her shoulders with lessened pressure, but remained his presence at her side.

“I did not know you were experiencing something," he said, tone frantic and strained, composure shredding to pieces. "I…I am so very sorry. I did not mean…I…V…”

“Can you help me up?” she asked. “My h-hands are trembling.”

He slid his right hand down her arm and cupped her left hand in his own. “These things take time,” he said softly, checking her fingers carefully. “Soon you will feel better than before. I am assured that your new arm will come to feel natural in due time.”

Raising her gently from the floor and steadying her at his side, she leaned into the idea of protection in his body. He was the scaffolding holding up the building of her.

“How about you sit down for a while, V?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I should do that. C-can you help me walk to my bed?”

“Of course,” he said.

Guiding her the short distance there, he held her shoulders carefully with his right arm, and then aided her to take a seat at the edge of the bed. She shuffled up onto the mattress further and crawled up into the pillows, laying against them with enough space to her left for him.

“Here,” she said, patting beside her. “Sit with me.”

He hesitated for only a moment before climbing onto the bed at her side and laying next to her. It was tentative, and perhaps an awkwardness...but a comfortable one, all the same. 

"You have stars on the ceiling," he said, pointing upwards to the expanse of neon blue constellations pressed above the bed.

"My friend gave those to me one time," she said. 

Her friend. Jackie. It was strange to think of him in the third-person, to consider him in a way that reduced him to merely her "friend".

"It is very cute," Takemura said. 

She liked to hear this word from him, like a softness he was willing only to indulge in for her sake.

Settling her hands together in clasp over her chest, she looked to the difference in their heights as they lay next to one another. 

Her legs did not cross the distance to the opposite wall, but his did. She crossed her ankles. 

Eyes trailing over the bookshelf which held above where their feet lay, she regarded the titles and read them in her head as a calming tactic. 

_Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_

_Akira._

_Requiem for a Dream._

_The Complete French-English Dictionary._

_Slash_ \- the autobiography of the guitarist which Johnny had insisted she buy.

_The Most Dangerous Game._

"Hm," she said.

Takemura turned his head to her. "What?" 

“Have you ever read the short story called _The_ _Most Dangerous Game?”_ she asked, pointing towards it where it sat on the shelf.

“No, I have not,” he said, turning his body to the right, and gazing down to look at her beside him. He leaned on his right elbow, pressed into the pillows.

“I think you should read it," she said. "Read it, and tell me all about it when you’re finished.”

“In the way you ask you question,” he said, furrowing his brow, “I assume that you yourself have already read it. So why do you need me to tell you what it is about, if you already know?”

She nodded, and said, “You’re right, I _have_ read it. But I want to hear what _you_ think of it, how you see it, and understand it.”

“Why can you not tell me what is truly on your mind, V? Why make me jump through a hoop to find the answer?”

“Alright,” she said. “I’ll tell you the story now, then.”

______

_A wealthy man from New York City, named Sanger Rainsford, was a big-game hunter._

_One day, while en-route to the Amazon Rainforest to hunt jaguars, Rainsford accidentally fell off his yacht and into the Caribbean Sea._

_From there, he swam to a nearby isle named Ship Trap Island, where he met a Russian man, General Zaroff, who was also a big-game hunter._

_This General Zaroff invited Rainsford to dinner and told him that the reason the island was named as it was, Ship Trap Island, was because he used it as a way to lure in unsuspecting sailors. He then would hunt them on the island, as if they were prey. Zaroff told Rainsford that he did this because animals no longer interested him, and he wanted to try something new; hunting humans._

_Rainsford was appalled to hear this, and denounced it as sadistic barbarism._

_However, in response, Zaroff was unphased at this accusation, and maintained that “life is for the strong.”_

_Zaroff then offered him an ultimatum: Agree to be hunted or resign himself to be whipped by Zaroff’s partner, Ivan, who was an official Knouter [one who beats criminals with a whip] for the Great White Czar._

_Seeing no other way out, Rainsford reluctantly agreed to the hunt._

_Zaroff was pleased with his choice, despite it not having been a willing one at all. Rainsford would have three days to hide successfully from Zaroff and his hunting hounds and be let free from the island, or be killed._

_Live or die were his only two options._

_Over the course of the story, Rainsford built several different traps and mechanisms using his skills in big-game hunting to try and catch Zaroff before he himself was caught. He wasn’t going to go down without a fight, and he wanted to take Zaroff down so that the man could never do this again to anyone else._

_In the end, Rainsford ended up killing both other men on the island, Zaroff and Ivan, and fed their bodies to the dogs._

_He then slept peacefully that night, in Zaroff’s bed, and maintained that he had "never slept in a better bed.”_

_General Zaroff believed that humans were superior prey because they were able to reason, that it was more fun to hunt them because they posed a significant challenge; put up a fight. In a way, it was more fun because they knew what was happening, and they knew that they were being hunted, thus reacting strategically and emotionally._

_He suggested that animals were not as fun because no matter how hard he tried, an animal would never truly know what he was doing to it, or why he was doing it. Man is the most dangerous animal of all, because it is more fun to play with them when they know you are hurting them._

_The story highlights, through the experience of Rainsford as he is hunted, the fears that animals must experience while being hunted._

________

“I think that you are trying to tell me something," Takemura said, after moments of paused digestion were taken.

“Which is?” she asked.

“You see me this way, don’t you?” he accused, and yet she gave no reaction, simply laying there and watching him, wide-eyed. “As some morally-corrupt machine that bends to the will of Arasaka.”

“Do _I_ see you like that?” she asked, eying him patiently. “Or do _you?”_

He faltered. His eyes betrayed him, as they so often did. He could not hide from her seeing him for who he really was.

“Goro…” she said, letting out a deep breath, and placing her right arm out to him. “Everything is a choice. Between left and right, right and wrong – and, we make thousands of them every day. Who you are, and who you’ll become, is the result of every choice you’ve ever made.”

"And?" he asked with a bite that was unfounded.

“And when you look back on those choices,” she continued, looking straight at him and not missing a single beat of eye-contact. “Are you happy with what you see? When you look in the mirror, who’s looking back?”

She gently held his chest beneath her palm.

“When Rainsford killed those two men, in the story, he became just like them,” she said. “They wanted him to play their killing game, and he did. He became the killer.”

“You imply the killer is me, don’t you?” he asked, but she shook her head, lightly mouthing _no_ to him.

“Goro, your power is in your ability to choose for yourself who you want to be, and if you don’t want to play their game, you don’t have to. Arasaka don’t control you,” she said.

He scoffed defensively and rolled onto his back again, looking up to the ceiling. 

“I don’t see you like that,” she said. She waited for him to look at her. She wanted him to listen. Wanted him to _hear_.

“Do you know what the story tells me?” she asked. “That people pushed to choose only between horrible options aren’t bad people. But that horrible situation can make you become far worse than bad. It can make you forget how to be _good.”_

He shook his head against the pillows and rolled his eyes, crossed his arms over his chest.

“Do you know who you are?” she asked, reaching out and taking his right hand into both of her own and thumbing across his knuckles.

She wondered how much of the skin upon him was still biologically human, and how much had been replaced with the introduction of the metal. She considered his relaying to her of having had it all done with no anesthetic, and she was fearful of the thought of him having willfully had his arms and neck cut and sliced while fully conscious.

“What?” he asked. “Know who I am? What is this meaning?”

“On a farm,” she said, “imagine a gate, standing alone, in a field. With no fence attached.”

“...Alright.” He closed his eyes. “I am thinking of it.”

“Now,” she said, “imagine a herd of sheep near the gate.”

“Okay.”

“The sheep could go anywhere they wanted. They could go left, they could go right, they could go backwards and forwards.”

“Yes. Those typically are the directions one could go.”

“But they won’t,” she said. He opened his eyes and looked to her. “They’ll go through the gate. Even though there’s no fence to stop them from going wherever they want to.”

“Because they are conditioned,” Takemura concluded.

“Yes,” she said, and then placed her right pointer finger against his chest. “You.”

He met her look and searched for something there. She allowed his probing gaze. He needed it. 

“You have options,” she said. “And yet, you don’t choose any of them. You go through the gate, because you’re supposed to. Because they told you to. When in reality, you could go anywhere you wanted to, if you just opened your eyes, looked around, and saw the freedom you have for what it really is.”

His eyes cast away, to their hands, where still she held her own over his. 

"Maybe..." he said quietly. "Maybe...there is truth to what you say."

“So, what does that all mean to you, then?” she asked, and he cleared his throat.

“It means…I have a lot to think about. And I thank you for having told me of these things, and for helping me to see more clearly.”

“Do you feel different now?” she asked, and he pursed his lips, blinking a few times in thought.

“Maybe…but, well…I suppose I do, though I am having difficulty articulating the feeling. I will need more time, to think on things,” he decided, and she nodded understandingly.

She smiled kindly and nodded, repositioning herself to cuddle at his side and placing her right arm over his chest. He wrapped his own right arm around her. 

“How...does it make you feel," he asked, "being here with me?”

At his words, she turned her head to the side to look at him. “It makes me feel…like I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else.”

He nodded, smiling faintly to himself.

“What about you?" she asked. "How do you feel?”

“The same way,” he said in agreement. “Like I know myself more because I can see me through your eyes.”

After that, they continued to lay quietly, softly breathing and listening to the slight sounds that the other would make every so often, her drawing small shapes into his chest with her right hand, draped over him.

“V…what is this that we are doing?” he asked, his eyes flicking down at her as she lay there, her hair falling somewhat onto his chest from their close proximity.

“What do you want it to be?” she asked, head lain sideways on his arm, looking up at him.

“I want…to know what you think, first. So that I do not embarrass myself.”

She sat up and looked at him up-right now, getting a proper sight of how he seemed so very bashful, his cheeks flushed. He grabbed a little pillow from beside him and shyly covered his face with him, which made her laugh softly at him.

 _“Goro,”_ she said, trying to push the pillow away from his face, but he wouldn’t budge. “You could never embarrass yourself in front of me.”

“Please? You first,” he mumbled through the pillow, and she stopped trying to pull it away from him.

He lowered it slightly so she could see his eyes, which were wide in bashful begging plea, and she couldn’t help but smile at the sight of him.

“Alright,” she said, taking up his left hand in her own and holding it up between them. She cleared her throat theatrically, and put her other hand over her heart. “Goro?”

“Yes?” he asked, watching her little theatrical performance.

“It would be to my very great pleasure,” she said. “If you would consider me to be someone special.”

He pulled the pillow from his face then, reveling the rest of him, still flushed pink, and he sat up a little more on her pillows, by the headboard, to get a better look at her.

“Of course you are special,” he said, matching her eyes with his own.

“And,” she continued, still holding his hand in hers and pulling it up to her chest. “I would like to know if you’d like to be with me? If you’d like to be with me as much as I’d like to be with you.”

“I would like that, very much.”

“Good,” she said.

They lay back down then, him on his back, and her nestled into his side, with his arm draped comfortably around her shoulder, rubbing small circles into her upper back, between her shoulder blades.

“Does this mean we are…together?” he asked, testing the word out and seeing how it felt to really say it, to confirm it between them like that.

“Is that what you want us to be?” she asked, her right hand laying softly on his chest and playing with the fabric of his shirt.

“I…think so,” he began, “but I am unsure what this will mean for the both of us.”

“You’re so cute, Goro,” she said, leaning into his side as they lay there, cuddling up to him and laying her chin on his chest.

“Am I?” he asked, and he sounded genuinely surprised at the comparison.

“Totally cute,” she said. “Like, a little baby otter.”

She wrapped her right arm over his chest and snuggled her face into the side of him comfortably. A secret nook for her to hide inside of.

“V?” Takemura asked in a hushed quietness. It was a sweet sound.

Her eyes were half-lidded and wanting to close, though she questioned him with a soft, “Yes?”

“Can I kiss you?” he asked. It was hesitant. Shy. He didn’t know how to do this just as much as she didn’t.

She looked up at him, chin upon his chest near his shoulder and said again, this time not a question, “Yes.”

Leaning up towards him, she placed her lips over his own and held there for a moment. What was in a kiss? It was a very strange, natural thing indeed. Why did it feel good to do that, even though the act itself seemed meaningless?

She wasn’t exactly sure how to kiss, to be frank, as nobody before him had ever tried to do so. Well, a kiss in which she desired to be a willing participant in.

He pulled his head away suddenly and she gave him a curious look.

“Does my age bother you?” he asked, a little worrying crinkle between his brow forming.

V shook her head and said, “Of course not. Why, does it…bother you?”

He caressed her face softly and gave her a look that felt like warm, melted chocolate. He regretfully confided with a downwards cast of his eyes, “I am fearful that it will not be possible.”

“That what won’t be?” she asked, pressing hopefully with an encouragement she intended to be calming.

“This,” he said sadly. “Between us. I am afraid it cannot sustain itself.”

“Sustain itself on what?”

“Time. Distance.” He paused. “Our lives.”

Considering these concepts, she asked, “Then what do you _want_ to happen to us?”

“I want that you will not be dying anymore,” he said. “I want you to be free of this thing in your head.”

“But that’s about me,” she said. “What about us?”

“I…cannot say.”

V sat up on her knees and placed her palms down on them, her body facing him and still close to touching.

“Do you like being here?” she asked.

“I have not felt such companionship with another person in a very long time,” he said.

“But?” she asked.

“But I am fearful of its temporary nature,” he said.

“Temporary?” she repeated.

He reached to place one of his hands over hers on her thighs. “We are in dire circumstances. If things were different…”

“If things were different,” she said, “we never would have met, Goro.”

“Hm,” he pondered. “This is true.”

“If things were different, and we did still meet, would you have talked to me?”

“Ah…likely not,” he said sheepishly. “I would not have wanted to bother you.”

“Bother me? You couldn’t bother me if you tried, Goro.”

“I would not have thought a young woman would wish to spend time with me.”

“Oh, Goro, who cares about that. I wouldn’t care even if you were, I don’t know, a hundred. Age doesn’t matter anymore. What was Saburo? One-sixty?”

He scoffed, but, smiled. “You do not even know my age," he said.

“Okay, then how old are you? One-fifty-nine?”

“Certainly not,” he said. “And I have mentioned my age in correlation to years before. You did not figure it?”

“Well, you said you were ten in 2039, so…”

“So…?”

“You’re forty-eight?”

“Mhm.”

“That’s nothin'. You’re practically only one-third of the way there.”

“Based on what scale?”

“Saburo. Like I said, he’s got one-sixty. So, I guess that’s the record.”

“Mm." He nodded. "Then you are one-sixth.”

“What if you’re lying?” she asked, and he gave her a concerned look.

“Lying?” he asked.

“How do I know you really are forty-eight?”

“Truly, I cannot prove it,” he said. “You will have to take me at my word. Is my word enough?”

“Maybe,” she teased. “Not sure yet.”

"Well, I will wait patiently for your decision," he said. 

“Forty-eight…” she repeated quietly.

“Something on your mind, V?”

“You’ve probably been in relationships before,” she said. “Were you ever married? Oh my god, are you…are you married _now?”_

“I…there was a woman in my life, years ago,” he said. “Though I would prefer not to speak of her.”

“Who was she?” V asked, and then added quickly, “Sorry. You just said you don’t want to talk about her and then I immediately brought her up.”

He laughed quietly, briefly, but it fell soon after.

“She was…my wife,” he said. “But not now. Not for many years.”

“How many?”

“Enough that I have accepted her passing but not enough that I can forgive it yet.”

“Oh,” V said. Her heart sunk like rocks in water. “She died?”

“Mhm.”

V lay down at his side again, pressing herself into him reassuringly in as much of a caring embrace as she could muster. He smiled at this and placed his hand on her head and brushed through her hair with his fingers. 

“Were you ever with anyone again?” she asked, her voice mumbling slightly as she spoke against him.

“Her death changed the meaning of my life,” he said, combing through her hair still. “I was…unfit to be a part of anyone’s life again after that.”

“Then why me, now?” she asked.

“It has been a very long time for me, V, if you know what I mean,” he said, still with a slight smile. “I have to admit my emotions may be getting the better of my judgement.”

“It’s been never for me,” she said, and hesitated. “Well…I mean…I…nevermind.”

She felt him tense against her. Bodyguard mode.

“You okay?” he asked, his hand hovering over her head and no longer touching her until he received his answer.

“Yeah,” she said, “I’m okay.”

“You are sure?” he pressed.

She made that distinct _“I don’t know”_ sound, lips closed, and shuffled further into him.

“Hm?” he said, brushing his thumb across her forehead to remove the hair blocking her eyes. “You want to keep talking about this, Valérie?”

“I don’t know,” she said. And she didn’t.

“Are you comfortable here with me?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said, wrapping her arm more firmly across his chest and holding her hand at his left ribs. “So comfortable, Goro.”

“Okay,” he said awkwardly, and gently placed his right arm over her back.

“You’re very beautiful, Takemura,” V said suddenly, and sat up again the way she had before.

He was humored by this, evidenced by the grin that begged at the corners of his mouth. But also, puzzled, by way of the pressing together of his brow in question.

“Beautiful?” he asked.

“Yes.” She reached out and ran her fingertips across the loose hairs that had fallen from the collected bun at the top of his head. “The color of your hair. Like the night sky. Dark and light at the same time. And the aging of your face, the way I can see those little lines across your forehead? Very cute.”

“I have not had anyone tell me these things before. Why do you say them?”

“Because I think they’re true,” she said. “Do I need a reason?”

“I…do not know.” He looked to the wall opposite them. “I have only known ulterior motive from most people. It is hard to trust.”

“You trusted me pretty easily, Goro,” she teased, and poked at his chest.

“Because I am lonely.”

“Oh,” she said, unprepared for the impulsive, empty words which he had sprung on her.

He tensed beside her and she knew he had let slip something which he had not meant to.

“Takemura?” she asked carefully.

“I…I apologize, V. I do not mean to put that on you. I did not mean to say that.”

_“Goro.”_

“V, you should not have to bear my insecurities. I should not have said so.”

“Goro.”

“It is fine, V.” He held up his hand in partition between them, creating intangible, suggested distance. “No harm is done. We need not speak of it.”

“Goro. It’s okay. You’re okay. I feel lonely too.”

“It is a weakness in my heart," he said. "I do not speak much of it.”

“What are you lonely for?” she asked.

“Lonely for a friend,” he said. “A companion. Lonely for…for…”

He placed his hands over his eyes and pressed a tiredness away that V knew he had carried with him since before she ever walked a day on this earth.

“I am sorry,” he said, perhaps too apologetically, bordering on the pathetic. A wounded animal. “This is unbecoming.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You should not see me this way.”

“But I want to,” she said encouragingly, soft and sweet. “Show me. Let me see your face.”

He dropped his hands but could not meet her eyes; her eyes which were open to him like the familial embrace of a steadfast and loving guardian.

She tipped his head up with a gentle knuckle beneath his chin and made his eyes align with hers. “You don’t have to be lonely anymore,” she said.

It was an offer, placed on the table. He would be free to pick it up or walk away from it.

It was a promise that he had _choices_.

“V, it is not so easy,” he said. “This will be a hardness. I do not wish to involve you in a matter which will fall down around us. These are complicated times.”

“I don’t care if it’s hard,” she said. “Anything worth doing is worth fighting for.”

His lip quivered and his irises shook in a watery blurriness. He closed his eyes and two long-held tears fell down his cheeks. He did not open them again and pressed his lips into a tight line. His face was tense.

“I am sorry about your arm, V,” he said, his voice breaking. “I am…I am hurting to think that I sent you to that fight. It is a great shame for me. And I am more sorry…than you can ever know.”

She nodded understandably, and let her right hand trail his face, and looking above his eyes, she said suddenly, “Would you take your hair down for me?”

He let out a humored cry, quiet and tired, and she saw the tearful mess of his eyes like an ocean overflown.

“Why is this?” he asked quietly, though clearly enough that she knew he was performing his own kind of damage control of his emotions.

“I want to see you,” she said, brushing his hair gently and placing her hand near the tight bun which held it all.

“V,” he said. “I…do not know. I do not allow anyone to see me in that way.”

“Please?” she asked.

He sighed and watched her eyes, the pleading in them, the care. She hoped he would see this.

He reached his hands behind his head and slowly released the tied ribbon woven deliberately around the black and grey strands that made up the physicality of _Takemura_ as she knew him. They fell slowly, cascaded around him, wavy and full of life, curled from being twisted and wrapped for many hours.

Her fingers found his locks immediately, twirling them around her hand. “See,” she said. “Beautiful.”

She played with his hair gently, and he allowed her, though cautiously. He did not stop her, and this was a minor victory between them. The knowing of his hair cast down. She was closer to him because of this.

He seemed not to know what to do with his own hands now, and so they sat respectfully in his lap, though he briefly made the move to place his right hand against her thigh, just barely, the back of it resting to touch her only just so.

“May I…ask you something?” he said. His words were slow, deliberate. Careful.

“Sure,” she said, still not done with her pointed exploration of all the wonderful long hair he’d been hiding all that time. His face was flushed from her being so close, but she said nothing of it. Surely it would have embarrassed him to know of the parts of himself he could not have control over.

“Does your… _interest_ in me,” he said, “have anything to do with the loss of your father?”

V laughed, and Takemura gave her a funny look. A confused look. He was very serious. She pulled all of his hair up and piled it on top of his head and then let it fall down messily.

“My father,” she said with a smile, “as I last knew him, was a sixty-four-year-old little Chinese man with short black hair and glasses. I don’t think I would say that exactly fits you.”

He nodded, a smile of his own picking up. She began to braid a small section of hair to the right of his face.

“I loved my father more than anything,” she said, “but I think what you offer me is something he never could.”

“Which is?” he asked.

“You make me feel safe because I know you’re strong.”

“You do not believe your father was strong?” he asked.

“My father had an incredible mind,” she said, “but he wasn’t physically a strong person. That’s part of why he deferred to the Tyger Claws. He was easy to intimidate.”

"And what of I?" he asked.

“You’re strong," she said, "and capable, and gorgeous, and you seem so young and so experienced at the same time. I think my dad would have liked you, if he had known you.”

She held the end of the braid and then released it, having nothing to tie it with. It fell back into the rest of his hair and slowly uncoiled.

“My dad was a tiny little engineer who tended to his whirligigs and electronics like a cyber-garden," she said. "You look like you just walked off the cover of some magazine in Tokyo. So, no, I wouldn’t say you particularly remind me of my father.”

She brushed her fingers through his hair again, on both sides. 

“No," she said, "I think you remind me more of my mother, if I had to say. Loyal to her responsibilities to a fault.”

"What...would your family have thought of me?" he asked. 

“If my dad could see you now, under normal circumstances, he’d say, ‘Yes. Good genes for good grandchildren. How many will you be having?’”

Takemura laughed. “I can see how that would be true what with your aunt’s reaction. My age would be no issue?”

“I think they would have just wanted me to be happy. I’ve…never dated anyone before, so I think they would be glad I found someone who makes my life easier.”

She tucked his hair behind his ears on both sides.

“My dad’s fascination with Japan I’m sure would have made him be more than excited about the idea of having you join the family.”

“May I ask another question?” he said, and though he had tried not to let it show, his tentativeness at the topic on his mind was evident, his voice noticeably unsure of what he was about to say.

“Of course,” she said, smoothing his hair again and holding the ends with her fingertips.

“I am unsure of the appropriateness for me to ask,” he admitted.

“Well…you could ask,” she said, “and...I’ll tell you if I feel comfortable answering.”

“Alright,” he said, and then swallowed apprehensively. “I am not exactly sure _how_ to ask, either.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “Take your time.”

“How…hm,” he began to ask and then stopped. “When you said that you had been touched…what…what happened?”

“Oh.” His hair fell away from her.

Takemura doubled back quickly and said, “Should I not have asked that?”

“No, it’s okay,” she said, and suddenly she felt very much distant from him, dissociated from their conversation. “I understand you’re curious.”

She shuffled beside him and didn't know where to go. Her body felt much too large, swelling like Alice in Wonderland when she ate those cakes and grew all those sizes too big. 

“I don’t really want to talk about it, but…I will say that, there are some things I’ll never forget. And, that...is one of them.”

“I am sorry," he said. "I should not have pried. This was wrong of me.”

“It’s okay,” she said, not even trying to muster a smile or a brighter tone or anything. It was like she wasn’t even there anymore, like she was running on auto-pilot because to be in her body was too much to endure. “I just…I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to talk about it. I don’t really think there even is a way to be ready. It’ll always be there, in the back of my mind, even after so much time has gone by.”

“How long ago was it?”

“Not long.”

“Recently?”

“In a way.”

Neither of them seemed to know what to do anymore, sitting awkwardly and strangely at the other's side. How quickly the two of them infringed on one another's personal boundaries was probably alarming. Or perhaps their boundaries overlapped so much that it was impossible _not_ to touch them. A clashing Venn Diagram of their lives and memories.

“Do you want to have sex with me?” she asked suddenly. Takemura noticeably shifted.

 _“What?”_ he asked, aghast at the candidness.

“I’m asking,” she said calmly. “No beating around the bush anymore. Is that…what you want?”

Takemura shook his head, somewhat, though it was clear to V that even a denial of her statement was a confusion to him. He opened his mouth to speak, forming words that did not come. He gave her a concerned, alarmed look. He shuffled on the spot, moving somewhat away from her, though she barely noticed.

“Valérie,” he said carefully. “I do not think you are in a good place mentally now. Perhaps let us talk of something else.”

“But do you?” she pressed quietly, and he shook his head again in vague frustration, perhaps. “Do you want me in that way?”

“You are asking for a yes or no answer?” He brushed his right palm across his hair and down his neck uncomfortably. “Is this truly an answer you are wanting?”

“I’m asking if you would have sex with me if you could,” she said. “If I was willing, would you?”

“Ignoring your own wants?” he asked confusedly. He was cracking somewhat under the pressure, coming apart. “You are asking if I would take advantage of you? If I would hurt you intentionally?”

She was hit with that one. Harshly. Rocks to the soul, tearing through her paper-bag heart.

She turned away from him where she sat and pulled her legs out from beneath her, wrapping her arms around her knees. She hid her face away from him and feigned disinterest.

“I…I don’t know,” she said, brushing him off as if the topic had never been breached at all. Perhaps he would forgive and forget. “Never mind. Sorry.”

A kind hand placed upon her right shoulder. Her skin crawled beneath the contact, a sudden fear, a sudden strangeness. A familiar unfamiliarity.

“Liling-chan,” he said. “Talk to me.”

She placed her hand over her mouth and pressed against her face. That word, that name – it sliced into her with a massive force of emotional pain she could not bear. A cry rested within her throat. She would not let it awaken. It should remain there, where it belonged. Hidden away. Undisturbed.

“Do you think that sex is only something taken by one person?” he asked gently, solemnly. “That it is not a shared experience?”

“I don’t know.”

“V, what has happened to you?”

He scooted closer to her and wrapped his arms carefully around her, cradled in her upright fetal position.

“What is your rush, V? I do not believe I truly understand what is happening here yet between us. What is your hurry?”

“I don’t want to die.”

“I know this. But how does it relate?”

“Because I want…" she said. "I want…to replace my memories with happy ones before I’m gone. When I go, wherever I go…I want to remember life as having been happy. I don’t want to remember the bad times.”

"Were there truly so many bad times that the good ones are not enough, V?"

“I don’t have a lot of time left," she said. "And I’m not a forward person…at all…but I don’t have time to think about that.” 

“V, you will be okay with Arasaka’s aid. You need not worry about these things. And do not treat yourself and your wellbeing as something to throw away as though it does not matter. Do not be with me if you think it is something you are forced to do.”

“I don’t feel like I have to do anything," she said. "I want to be with you.”

“But what are you looking for?”

“I don’t know.”

He rocked her gently, softly. 

“I want to remember what it was like before I learned how to be sad," she said.

“V." He held her head to him. "Why do you say such things?”

“I want to end life happy.”

“You…want to die?” he asked.

“I want to die happy.”

She pulled away and looked up at him. His arms were reluctant to let her away from him. 

“I want you to teach me," she said.

“Teach you what?" he asked. "I am teaching you much already. What else is there?”

“Teach me what it’s like to not be hurt. You were a bodyguard. You know how to fight without feelings." She held up her fists playfully. She was masking sadness. "I want that. I want to not care.”

“Do you not think this has happened too fast?” he asked. 

“Oh,” she said, hands falling. “Is that…is that what _you_ think?”

“V.” He smiled and shook his head at his own self. “If I am being completely transparent? In a physical sense, it cannot happen quickly enough. I already told you I was very lonely. Surely you can imagine what that means.”

She laughed, and he smiled more, a direct reaction. He must like to see her happy, she thought. “I’m sure you’re plenty repressed for me, Goro,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

“Mentally, however,” he said, lips falling ever so slightly. “Yes. This between us is a lot to take in.”

V nodded, her own smile fading away and melting into a look of understanding.

“What if we just…left?”

“Left what?” he asked confusedly. He reached and twisted her hair between his fingers and tucked it behind her ear. He was preoccupied with exploring her.

“Left the city,” she said. “And Arasaka.”

He dropped his hand.

“You are saying to leave everything behind?” he asked. “What of your life?”

She shrugged, and offered, “We can figure it out together.”

“You are very attached to me already,” he said with a little chuckle. “I do not know how to feel of this.”

But he didn’t protest. A silent victory. Known only to her and perhaps entirely unaware to Takemura himself.

He had not fought her. Had not said it would be impossible.

His concrete walls were chipping away. She was seeing the real Takemura for once. The man who would not hide.

“Sorry,” she said with a shy grin. “I was just…kidding. I didn’t mean to be weird.”

He caressed her face and gave a sympathetic look, saying, “I have already technically confessed that I have…certain… _thoughts_...about you, and you believe you are the weird one?” He huffed a contented breath. “Surely it is you who should be weirded out.”

“No, I like you too much for that,” she said. “You couldn’t ever be weird. Not to me. I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“Perhaps not the wisest course of action, V,” he warned, though with no bite. He didn’t mean it. And she knew he didn’t.

“Mm,” she said. “Perhaps not.”

______

A Takemura & V playlist I put together on Spotify. ^_^

<https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0XpSLJbYd1jVYNJXLfM9U4>


	12. Take Me To A Deep River

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Trigger Warning for this entire chapter with regards to depictions of sexual violence and general content which may make you uncomfortable or distressed if you are bothered by such things. Please, please regard this chapter with caution._

C H A P T E R T W E L V E

_Take Me To A Deep River_

**Arasaka Memorial Museum, November 2062**

The lights of Arasaka had been snuffed from Night City since the bombing of 2023, plunging the Japanese-American community into an era of darkness.

The reaction to their community – namely, with regards to the Tyger Claws – had been anything but positive in the years following; xenophobia on the steady incline after the expulsion of the Tokyo megacorp from Californian soil.

Though Valérie Siallou and her father were not Japanese, the general public did not care to know the difference.

Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, Mongolia - to the citizens of Night City, these were interchangeable. 

In reality, Arasaka represented no one except the family for whom it was named, in all of their economically benefitted ways. But in the eyes of the general American who lives a life of hate, Arasaka threatened the very foundation of American ingenuity. 

Anyone remotely East Asian was a target, and through her youth, she suffered poignant harassment at the whims of the people around her, people who supported the actions at Arasaka Tower and believed that the Japanese should be expelled from the city entirely. The Fourth Corporate War had invoked a sense of racial superiority over an innocent group of people blamed for the goings-on of the Towers; a superiority which cared very little for the individuals who were scapegoated by the actions of a capitalist system.

The opening of the Arasaka Memorial Museum in 2062 was meant to be a peace-offering to Japan; the first positively-inclined intention towards a potential future hand-in-hand with the eastern country again, following so many decades of hatred and blood dried between them.

More than politically, though, was what its opening represented on a personal level.

For someone like Valérie’s father, Li Jie, it represented the possibility of being accepted in his home, in his city, as an equal – an equal who would no longer be forced to shelter his family beneath the shattered glass wings of the Tyger Claws in order to procure protection. The Tygers were the only benefactors of the Asian community in Night City, and while their methods and ideology were morally questionable, there was no one else rising to the occasion of a group of people desperately in need of comfort.

For all intents and purposes, Arasaka had run red blood through the streets upon their departure in 2023 and the Tyger Claws had tasted it like it was the only water they’d known in a desert of a thousand miles.

Vultures seek the dead from any distance.

It was night, but only just so, with the precipice of six o’clock in November hanging by its delicate edge.

Sundown. Orange. Yellow. Red. Fire in the air as it descended the almost winter sky.

The exterior of the museum, with its enormity - reaching tall in lengthy white pillars and marble statues - was a phantom in the darkness, a pearly ghost amidst the black of night. 

A handful of cop cars were parked outside in the event of an incident, a few of them with their lights on, which reflected red and blue onto the paleness of the marbled building, dancing like water on the walls of a cave.

Written above the entrance, carved into the stonework, read “起死回生”, between two cranes - one on each side.

Valérie, tiny little thing with messy hair cropped to her shoulders, looked up at this as she and her father entered amongst the crowds of people heading inside. She stopped momentarily to stare at those words which she did not understand enough of to make out.

Her father stopped when he realized that she wasn’t following him, and he turned back to see what had gotten the girl so caught up.

“You coming, Liling?” he asked, hands in his jacket pockets to protect from the cold, his breath coming out as little warmed puffs into the crisp, cool air.

Still looking up, Valérie felt a bit lost. Without looking towards her father, she asked quietly, “What does this say, Ba-ba?”

Retreating back down the steps closer to her, Li Jie turned his head up at the writing to have a good look at it.

“It says, ‘Bring back to life’, more or less.”

“Oh,” she said, her mouth in a distinct little O shape. “What does it mean?”

“It's an old Chinese and Japanese idiom that means something along the lines of...recovery from a terrible situation,” he said.

“It’s Chinese _and_ Japanese?” she asked, making a surprised face. Her nose was pink from the cold.

He laughed and said, “Well. It's complicated. But…yes.”

“Confusing,” she said.

“Very,” he agreed, staring up at it himself.

Taking a few steps forward, she took a last look up at it, and then turned her head back down and grabbed her father’s right hand in her left. He held her gently as they rejoined the line of people leading to the museum.

Inside, the pitter-patter sound of the beginnings of rain tapped on the roof above them, echoing throughout the large room. Peaceful. There was a comforting feeling of the indoors embracing them.

Valérie looked all around them at the long, expansive marble halls of the museum as she trailed closely beside her father. On the walls, the darkened windows were being run down by light rainwater droplets, a spattering of translucent glimmering in the night.

Her mother and aunt hadn’t been able to come that night, nor her uncle (by marriage) or their son, Hwangbo, who was a few years her senior and someone Valérie admittedly had a small crush on. But she wouldn’t tell anyone this. It was just hers to keep secret.

No, only her and her father had been invited to this exclusive opening of the museum – and she felt positively like Charlie Bucket from _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,_ having won the golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s but only being permitted one guest.

The building bustled with patrons, many of whom Valérie thought looked more elegant than anyone she had ever seen. Golden ballgowns and silvery boas, glamorous jewelry and high heels that made their wearers stand so tall she felt like a little monkey in the forest of their legs. She may not have understood exactly why, but she knew that her father and her didn’t exactly fit quite right with the others.

The entrance hall stretched on for what felt like forever to her. A lengthy, wine-colored rug runner trailed from the front door, into the room, and then shot off in three separate directions, leading to the north, east, and west wings, respectively.

To her right, far across the ballroom, a gathering of men and women in noticeably neon-influenced attire lingered in a _peculiar_ way beneath a colossally high wooden archway.

“Ba-ba, the Tygers are here,” she said quietly, pointing in their direction where they stood like a swarm near the entrance to the east wing of the building, standing guard in black and red suits and noh masks to hide their faces.

“Do not be disrespectful, Liling.” He held her hand more firmly in his own, tightening his grip. “They invited us. We owe them our thanks for this opportunity.”

“Who did?” she asked as they stepped forward in line, heading to the check-in. Her right hand was up to her face; the tip of her thumb near her mouth. “Who invited us?”

“Jotaro Shobo,” her father said factually, craning his head over the crowds of people in front of them to look towards the beginning of the line.

Valérie crinkled her face at the name, swallowing a harsh thickness of welling spit, her stomach tying in on itself in intricate loops and knots at the sound. The lingering feeling of the Tyger Claws chief’s wandering hands over her body at family gatherings made her face feel red, her body shaky with white static.

The Ho-Oh Club, which Jotaro owned, wasn’t a place for children, but she had spent many a reluctant school-day afternoon scribbling her homework in notebooks at the bar over the backdrop of booming bass and clinking glasses while her father worked upstairs. 

She held her father’s hand more firmly to hide the trembling which wracked through her fingertips.

"Is he here?" she asked worriedly.

Li Jie patted her patronizingly on the back with his free hand – firm, but languid. The grin ticking up on the corner of his mouth told her that he didn’t entirely see her reaction to the man as an undeserved one.

“Do not be disrespectful, Liling,” he repeated, his hand stalled and held protectively over her shoulders now as he guided them through the line. “Jotaro was the one who gave you your doll. The one that looks like you. He's like a brother to me.” He squeezed her neck at its ticklish spot and she giggled, squirming under his touch. “We don’t have much family here, Liling. You should see him like an uncle. He invited us, so, he is sure to be here.”

She stepped on a wrinkle in the red runner they were following and smoothed it with her sneaker, which blinked in little glittering lights at her movement. She bit the skin inside her mouth and, unable to hold it inside, tossed out a perfunctory, “He’s scary.”

“Scary!?” Her father laughed heartily, patting against her shoulders again. “Jotaro’s obaachan made us that onigiri you liked, Liling. Remember? They're good people. He is no more scary than I am. Am I scary?”

He looked down at her and flashed a goofy smile, sticking his tongue out and crossing his eyes. She laughed, tiny and squeaky.

“No, Ba-ba,” she said, shaking her head in the decline of his words. “You’re not scary at all.”

"Good," he said. "I hope not."

When they finally arrived at the front, the workers at the desk took their names and wrote fancy words in a big book of numbers and letters which Valérie didn’t know. More Japanese. But not the Japanese that was the same as Chinese that her father had told her about.

A woman pinned a little red flower – plastic – to Valérie’s pink cardigan and smiled at her, then did the same to her father.

“This is cute,” Valérie said, pinching the fabric of her clothes to look at it. Her glasses slid down her nose and she pushed them back up. They were lopsided on account of her big, uneven ears.

A man in a uniform standing on a high staircase nearby which led into the upper-wing of the museum cupped his hands around his mouth and said, “Red Group is up the stairs; Blue Group is through the east; Green Group is through the west. Follow me, Red Group. Everyone else: back the way you came.”

“Upstairs!” Valérie said excitedly. “I love upstairs. Better than downstairs. Or left…stairs. Right-stairs.”

Her father patted her on the top of the head and jiggled her around. “Brain soup”, he’d call it. She giggled and swatted his hand away with her own that was not holding his.

They ascended the stairs with their designated tour group, a collection of around thirty, and followed their guide as he led them upwards and down the left hall.

“If you follow me this way,” he said, walking backwards and ushering his group towards him with beckoning hands, like landing a plane. “We have the Paper Lantern Atrium.”

As they walked, the man propositioned the group for questions, many of whom Valérie noticed were carrying notepads and pens, with cameras hanging around their necks.

A blonde woman in a golden dress near the front of the group spoke up, saying, “If Arasaka aren’t a part of the NUSA Alliance, why is this museum allowed?”

The guide nodded with a small smile, something that said he’d anticipated this very question. “Arasaka are an important part of Japanese-American history,” he said, “and the city believes that, while relations with the business itself may be strained as of now, the memorial of what happened in the past is necessary to remember.”

The crowd made sounds of affirmation, absorbing this information. Flashes of photographer lenses went off in a splash of brightness here and there.

Another woman, this time in a pink dress (which Valérie thought was _much_ prettier) asked, “Do Arasaka sanction the existence of the museum?”

“Officially, yes,” the guide said, pausing carefully. “This…is a beginning effort to smooth tides between the city and the Arasaka corporation. It is, admittedly, a _modest_ endeavor, but we hope the coming years will bring significant change. Our hope is for Arasaka to rejoin the Alliance by 2070.”

“Will NUSA be welcomed back into the Tokyo embassy?” a man in the back asked. This man was wearing a suit. Valérie counted the buttons of his jacket. Seven of them. Brass.

“We…don’t have information about Japan at the current time,” the guide said. “But we’re willing to answer anything about Night City, if you have other questions.”

The man shook his head with a smug smile and took a drink of champagne from the glass held in his left hand. He leaned to whisper something to someone in his company as they walked. Valérie watched them carefully over her shoulder and wanted to know what they were saying that she wasn’t a part of.

“Right, then,” the guide said. “Follow me through here. We ask that you remain relatively quiet and respectful in this particular room. Photographs will not be permitted for anyone not on the board. We’ll be checking at the door as you pass inside.”

Each person was scanned at the arch leading into the room, arms out at their sides to ensure they weren't hiding anything unsavory. Valérie and her father, hovering towards the back of the group, were checked next to last. 

Inside, a cavernous, white-walled beauty of a place with what felt like hundreds – no – thousands, of sunshine yellow paper lanterns ascending to the ceiling...up, up, and away to the skylight. Other than the lanterns, the room was darkened, the lights like fireflies. 

Every individual lantern was carved with a different design; suns and swirls and crescent moons and stars – each one projecting the light inside out onto the walls of the room like reverse shadow puppets. If constellations were able to be touched by humans, this room would have discovered the secret.

“Wow…” Valérie whispered to herself, craning her neck as far as she could to look up all the way to the very top.

Her father leaned in close and said back, “Wow is right.”

The guide stepped up on a podium nearby and gestured towards the light. “Each lantern is lit for one person who passed in the Arasaka Tower Bombing of 2023,” he said. “We plan to light the candles every Sunday to celebrate the continuation of life after tragedy to honor the families of the victims. The lanterns light up through the designs cut on each one to create patterns on the walls which show us the unique individual within every person who was lost that day.”

"Will any exhibit in the museum pay reference to Robert John Linder?" someone near the front asked. 

The tour guide shook his head, and said, "That's a difficult question. A difficult topic for everyone. History shouldn't be covered up, but this is a sensitive area, as I'm sure you can imagine. We would prefer to pay tribute to the victims, only. Less of a history lesson, and more of a celebration of life."

The crowd nodded their heads and took turns circling the room, taking in the lanterns from different angles.

The guide allowed them only a few minutes before speaking again, saying, “This way, if you follow me, now, thank you.” He used his arms to wave them on, making sure to check that each person was following the rules and not lingering for a bit too long at the exhibit.

Li Jie leaned to Valérie’s ear and said, "What're his panties in such a twist over?" She giggled. 

“We’ll make our way now to a recreation of a chashitsu – the tea houses which originated in the Edo period of Japan. If you’ll just turn down this hallway – _yes_. A little hustle wouldn't kill you all, come on.”

Heading out of the room and up a different flight of stairs, Valérie looked to her right to see a group of Tyger Claws, just feet away, heading up a different staircase which was not in the jurisdiction of any of the tour groups designated sections. A familiar face was meshed within the group, and caught her eye as he passed by. It was only a few seconds worth, but she wished she had not been looking.

“Li Jie-san!” the man from the group of Tyger Claws called, his arms out wide and dramatic on approach. He was young and old at the same time. Valérie knew her father was _old_ , and this man looked younger than her father, so she knew that this man was at least younger than _old_.

“Jotaro!” her father called back, and they embraced in a brief but firm familial patting of the backs, as men often did when they hugged. She noted her father’s non-use of honorifics; a common occurrence for him in his years since leaving Shanghai.

Jotaro kept his right hand on her father’s shoulder and smiled brightly at both he and her. “I’m so glad you made it. And…” He looked specifically at her. She hid her face behind her father’s arm. “Valérie. What, am I that scary?”

“Yes,” she said, and he laughed, loud and clear, releasing his grip on her father and throwing his hand on his chest in humor.

“She called you that exact word, actually,” her father said, and she privately scowled at him behind his coat, face flushed in embarrassment and something else she didn’t understand.

“Well, I _can’t_ be scary,” he said, crouching on his knees to make himself smaller than her, less of a threat. He reached to grab her hand. “I won’t allow it. How about you come with me and I’ll show you a part of the museum _nobody_ else gets to see? Hm?”

“That sounds great,” her father said, patting her on the back and pushing her forward. Something in his voice trembled momentarily and Valérie wondered at her father’s thoughts. She never knew them. She was too young to know them. He held his hand on her, though, even as he ushered her forward.

“Oh,” Jotaro said, “Jie-san, don’t worry about it. I can take her.”

“We came here together,” her father said jovially, but somehow with iron laced in the spaces between. “I think we should stick together.”

Jotaro brushed him off with a smile she didn’t like. It made her feel gross inside. “Oh, don’t worry about that,” he said. “I can take care of her. You just go and enjoy the tour.”

Her father looked at her, and she couldn’t read his face, but she knew that it was one of something strange. If emotions mixed like paint colors, his expression was tertiary.

"Alright," he said, and her heart sank inside her chest, rocks to the ocean floor of her tummy. "You just...you just catch up with me. Okay?"

He placed his hands on his daughter's shoulders and looked carefully into her eyes. "Okay?" he asked again, and she nodded frantically. 

She wanted to tell him not to go, but she couldn't. She didn't know the words to explain why she didn't like Jotaro.

Her father faded away, back into the tour group, but continuously took minor glances over his shoulder as he walked away. She didn't understand why her father knew not of her discomfort. 

Jotaro patted her shoulders with both hands and said, "Well, let's get to it, shall we?"

He grabbed her hand in his own and she didn't protest. He pulled her along with him, both gentle and aggressive, towards the other Tygers who had accompanied him. 

He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb and she could feel her palms getting clammy.

“Good day at school today?” he asked as they headed off down a separate hallway, red carpeted floors and white walls. The others kept a minor distance. 

Valérie nodded, but didn’t answer, trying to look at anything but him, trying to think about anything but his hand in hers.

“Quiet,” he remarked. “Why are you so quiet today?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a childishly dismissive shrug. She pulled in a shaky breath when he placed his other hand over theirs which were already clasped. She looked to his face, though she hadn’t wanted to.

He was pulling a faux shocked expression. “‘I don’t know?’” he repeated with exasperation. “Can you not give me better than an _‘I don’t know’?”_

“It was okay…” she said quietly, though trying to up the sound of her voice to make it seem more engaged.

“Hm…” he said, tapping his chin in pretend thought. “I guess that’s a little better. It’s a start.”

Dragging her along with him, he chattered ambiently with the others at their side, all but ignoring and not including her in their blatant full-Japanese discussions which he was fully aware she wouldn't understand.

He stared down at her as they walked the halls, and though she was not looking at him, she could feel his eyes boring through her like a magnifying glass burning a sidewalk ant on a sunny day.

”How do you like the museum?” he asked.

She shrugged and said, “It’s pretty.” 

“You know,” he said factually, “I paid for half of everything here.”

Valérie said nothing. How his wealth was supposed to impress her when they barely had running water at home was beyond her. She didn’t understand why he wanted to talk about money. Adults and money was as bad a combination as Fruit Loops in apple juice. 

“Maybe you’d like to come back to Ho-Oh tonight, Valérie,” he said, and he rubbed his thumb over her hand again. 

“No,” she said. 

A laugh wracked through the man in thunderous belligerence. “No!?” he exclaimed. “But you love Ho-Oh!”

”Not really,” she said, trying to keep her face bored, though she was terrified. He always sought to invoke a reaction in her, and not giving one to him was her silent rebellion. 

“‘Not really,’ she says. Ha! You love Ho-Oh, I know you do, Val.” 

She crumbled a little at the nickname. Nobody called her Val except her mother. That Jotaro had adopted it was his willful way of shoving a sense of familiarity onto her, one which she hated. 

Hated. 

Yes.

She _hated_ him. 

Somewhere up a floor, they passed a room with the door propped open.

Inside, a huddling of important-looking men and women scattered about at circular white tables drank red liquid from fancy glasses. Calls burst out to Jotaro from this room as they approached.

"Jotaro!" 

"Shobo!"

"Come in here and take a look at this!"

The man paused, million-dollar smile on his face as always, and stepped into the doorway to the room, engaging the people within in conversation and checking what it was that they'd wanted. The other Tyger Claws continued on their way without him, not caring to wait around for the man for whom every moment was an opportunity to show off.

While he was facing the doorway and its inhabitants, Valérie took the opportunity to slip carefully away from him and dashed quietly back down the red carpeted hallway. Her ladybug backpack bumped wildly against her as she turned and threw herself as quickly as possible down hallways after hallways, putting as much distance between her and him as possible. 

She stopped for a moment to catch her breath – dodging into a shallow alcove in the white wall – and then returned to her daring escape from the grasp of that man.

She didn’t remember this part of the museum, and with the looming threat of Jotaro Shobo’s company lingering in the forefront of her mind, she was afraid to spend long searching for a familiar hall. Each one looked the same, white on red, and none were distinct from any other.

She turned and ducked, snuck and scurried, most halls empty. The ones that weren’t seemed none too concerned about the young girl traipsing through, as they probably assumed she was the child of someone who was meant to be there.

A grand staircase appeared to her, and though she knew she hadn’t ascended it yet, a crowd of voices was rumbling from behind her in a near hall, and she feared who might be at the helm of it. The upwards climb would be worth it to get away, even if it meant being more lost.

Stumbling up the stairs, her light-up sneakers blinked in wild arrays of pink and blue upon every step.

“Oh!”

Her body had collided roughly with a black-suited chest as she came around the corner of the stairs, to which she fumbled backwards a few steps.

She looked up in surprise into the face of an unfamiliar Asian man with dark black hair to his shoulders looking down upon her with a small, considerate smile, brow quirked at her antics. Behind him, a young boy – also Asian – stood awkwardly in a similar black suit.

The older man turned his head and mumbled humored words to the boy in what was most likely Japanese.

He looked back to her, still smiling in vague humor, and said, “I do not believe you should be here, little girl.”

“Oh! I’m sorry,” she said, staring up at him in wonder. He had metal for a neck and a silverly line which trailed from ear-to-ear beneath his eyes, over the bridge of his nose. She wanted to stare at it. “I didn’t mean to. I-I got lost.”

He stepped down a few stairs to ones at a lower level than hers, so that he could be more comfortably at her height. This made her tensions ease. She could look straight into his eyes now – which were platinum white.

“Are you alright?” he asked softly. Though his irises were a cold color, their feeling was anything but. She felt safe.

“I lost my dad,” she said quickly, spilling the beans to this stranger as soon as possible. “I can’t find him.”

“Oh,” the man said. “Well, that simply will not do.”

"I don't remember which way he went," she said frantically, looking around every which way.

“Would you like me to help you find your father?” the man asked. His voice was much more accented than she was used to, and she wondered where he'd come from.

Valérie nodded hopefully, and the man gestured for her to follow him. 

They ascended the steps together, joining with the young boy who had lingered behind the elder man.

“C-can I hold your hand?” Valérie asked shyly, stammering out the words which had made themselves comfortable in her young brain.

“Of course,” the man said, and she slipped her right hand into his left palm, feeling the cooled metal of the lines running through his skin.

The man led them back upstairs into a decorative, but comfortable, circular room. It made Valérie think of the Oval Office.

“Would you like to wait here?” the man said, gesturing towards a plethora of couches and chairs available for the taking. “We will contact your father and let him know you are here.”

She eyed many trays of fancy drinks and desserts spread across a coffee table in the sitting area.

“You may have some,” the man said with a small grin, gesturing his hands towards the food. “It is okay.”

She looked to him for approval before dropped her backpack beside a couch and flopping onto it, pulling her legs up crisscrossed and making herself perfectly comfortable. 

Everything looked so good and expensive and delicious and she just couldn't figure out what to choose. A green drink with little flowers sprinkled on the top appealed, so she picked that. 

“Why are you here?” she asked curiously, taking a drink of the green stuff and smacking her mouth to decide if she liked it or not. It tasted like her aunt’s face masks.

“We are here on very important business,” the man said, tossing in a quick wink at the end.

“Important business?” she asked, looking across each layer of the porcelain dessert trays. “Like…secret business?”

“ _Very_ secret business,” he said.

"Ohh," she said, choosing a small vanilla cake and putting it on a napkin. "Sounds important."

“What is your father’s name?” the man asked.

Valérie chewed on a cherry from atop the cake and forgot there was a seed, biting into its hardness and grimacing, then spitting it into her hand. “His name is…” She swallowed and discarded the seed in a napkin. “His name is Hóng Li Jie. He was in…” She held up the flower on her shirt. “Red Group.”

“Hóng Li Jie. Red Group. Got it.”

He gave her a small bow and turned to pass into a separate doorway than the one they had entered the room through.

The younger boy lingered quietly a few paces from the couches, hands clasped behind his back.

"Are your parents here, too?" she asked him, though he just stared at her. His eyes were a similar color to the man's. 

She waited for a response, but received none, so she added, "Are you lost, too?"

He shook his head in the decline. 

"Then who are you?" she asked. 

Still, he said nothing. Just remained standing and watching her. 

"Do you want to sit with me?" she asked, and pointed to the seat across from her. 

The boy looked to the doorway which the older man had exited through and then towards the couch. He crossed the room and sat opposite her, back straight and hands placed palms-down upon his thighs.

From the other room, the man returned, and the young boy looked at him quickly, moving to stand again though being ushered to remain by the man. The boy relaxed. 

At a matching couch chair to her left, the man sat with them. 

Valérie was busy now examining a glass dome upon the coffee table which held a tree with pink flowers glowing tiny and sweet. 

“You like the terrarium?” the man asked, and she nodded.

“Oh, yes I do,” she said. “It’s very pretty.”

“This is a Sakura tree," he said. "The petals were plucked straight from a tree in Tokyo, cast in resin, and attached to these branches.”

“Are you from Japan?” she asked, and he nodded.

“We are,” he said.

“Are you going back there?”

“Yes,” he said. “Soon.”

“What will you do there?”

“More important business.”

The boy spoke something in Japanese and the man responded, the former's voice somewhere between high and deep; that scratchy, faded, pubescent zone in males where they weren’t quite little boys anymore, yet hadn’t made it to teenage-hood.

The man turned his head and told her, “He says that he does not know English very well. But he wants to say that he was not ignoring you before.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “I don’t know any Japanese. So, we’re even.”

The older man knelt close from where he sat on the chair and whispered something into the boy’s ear, to which the youth nodded. Mister Black Suit gave Valérie a last look where she sat, and then stood and walked away, disappearing into the side room again.

She regarded the young boy curiously.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Sandayu,” the boy said. “What is yours?”

“Valérie,” she said. “How old are you?”

He held up all ten fingers, dropped them, then held up three more.

“Thirteen?” she asked, and he nodded, then pointed towards her.

“I’m eight,” she said, then added quickly, _“but I’m almost nine.”_

She tapped her fingers against her knee, thinking.

“What are you here for?” she asked, stabbing a fork into a little cake piece in front of her and putting it in her mouth.

“I work,” he said.

“You work?” She chewed and swallowed quickly so she wouldn’t be talking through food. “But you’re a kid! Why do you work? I don’t work.”

“I just begin work,” he said.

Stabbing another tiny cake bite with her fork and examining it, she said, “What do you do?”

He smiled faintly and said, “Learn lots.”

“Learn lots?” she repeated curiously, looking up at him in question. “Of what?”

“Many things,” he said.

“I thought you said you didn’t know English." She eyed him suspiciously. “But I think you’re doing great!”

He grinned. “I know a little," he said.

“Lilingbai!”

From the door she'd first entered the room through, her father darted in and straight for her, grabbing her in his arms and pulling her up to hold onto him, tossing her legs around his waist. He checked her face, holding her in his hands. 

He squeezed her into his arms and crushed himself around her. “I was so scared. Don’t ever leave my sight again."

"But you let me go,” she said, though quietly enough that it was only to him. "Why didn't you go with me?"

He shook his head against her, pressing her face into her hair, and said, “Ba-ba wasn't thinking right. Promise me you’ll never be by yourself.”

She scrunched her nose up at this. _He was being weird_ , she thought. "Huh?"

"Promise me," he said again.

“Okay. I’ll never be by myself.”

“And you’ll always be by my side.” he said. “I’ll keep you safe.”

“And I’ll always be by your side, dad. And you’ll keep me safe.”

He held her more to one side then, and looked out to the older man and boy watching them. 

"Thank you so much," her father said, and that sound was present in his voice again. Some kind of unsureness which Valérie couldn't identify. It was the feeling she got when she kept secrets.

“Sandayu-kun,” the man with metal in his neck said, stepping protectively behind the boy and placing a silvery-lined hand upon his shoulder. “It is time to go.”

“I liked meeting you,” V said as the boy stood and pressed the temporary wrinkles from his suit. “Maybe we can see each other again.”

The elder man pulled Sandayu’s elbow as he began to usher him away, the other hand over his shoulders. Even at thirteen, the younger boy was already quite tall, only about a foot shorter than his elder.

“Say your goodbyes, San-kun,” the man said, and the boy looked back to her where she was in her father's arms.

“Goodbye, Valérie,” he said with a sheepish smile.

She waved at him and said, “Goodbye,” back.

* * * * *

**Japantown, July 2073**

Her apartment was cold. A blue summer night.

Willowing, blustering winds whistled through the cracks in the spaces between her windows and walls, throwing sliced bursts of cold into the living room. The nighttime sang with the lyrics of eleven o’clock, calling out to her where she sat upon the floor, wedged near her couch and coffee table, completing a calming puzzle she’d begun earlier that night with Misty and Jackie.

A pot of water on the stove in the kitchen. Warm. Familiar.

Pressing carefully considered pieces next to pieces in the puzzle, her body felt soothed and cozy under the fuzzy blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

Then, there were knocks. Hasty, impatient knocks pounding on her door like screaming, calling out to whoever was inside.

“Jackie?” she called out, craning her head in the general direction of the front door. “Jackie, is that you? Did you forget something?”

The knocking continued to beat rapidly, and whoever was behind the sound seemed furious, like they’d been knocking for hours and had yet to receive an invite inside.

Placing down the cardboard puzzle pieces she'd held in her hand, she stood, releasing the blanket onto her couch.

If it were Jackie, he would have said something. It wasn't like him to try and scare her. That wasn't Jackie. 

She approached the door then, and reached her right hand out for the doorknob, turning it with a slight creak that provided the only sound to the now unnervingly quiet room, aside from her anxious breathing.

A man stared in at her, white menpō covering the bottom half of his face. A scar scratched from the top of his forehead to beneath the mask, over his left eye. His right eye was covered by messy black hair.

“I already paid my rent,” she said, speaking only through the crack in her door which was held securely to the wall by one of those metal chain sliding locks.

She attempted to shut the door, but a combat boot thrust in the space between kept it from closing.

“No rent,” he said bluntly.

“What?”

Slipping a bent metal rod into the open space and over the slide lock, he ripped it from its confines and shoved the door into her, throwing her back and off-balance.

“Daddy is not home?” he said, taking a gazing sweep of her apartment. A crossbody bag was thrust over his shoulder. 

She stepped in front of the urn on her living room shelf with her father's photo at its side, blocking it where she stood. “Not right now,” she said. Her mouth felt dry. “But he’ll be back soon.”

The man laughed, loud and intentional. It filled the room like metal through paper, tearing and breaking, though muffled through the mask.

She pretended confidence. “What do you want?” she asked, as consistent and casual as she could.

“I think that you are hiding something, Liling-chan," he said, taking a step towards her and reaching for her hair. 

“W-what?” she said. Her body felt paralyzed to the spot.

He shoved her to the side and she pushed against him, but he was much stronger, and the spikes of his jacket poked into her skin painfully. She relented.

He laughed at the sight of what she had been blocking. “Sorry I could not make the funeral," he said, grabbing her father's portrait and then setting it back down again. 

“Very sad,” he said. “You sad? Dad gone for one month.”

“What do you want?” she repeated plainly, crossing her arms.

Calm. Cool.

Cool. Calm.

No danger here.

“His things here?” the man asked. She supposed he couldn't be older than thirty.

“You mean his workshop?” she asked. “No. It was in Watson.” She internally regretted adding this information. Yes. In Watson. At her aunt’s house. She didn’t want them to know this.

“Not workshop,” he said, shaking a finger tauntingly and then pressing it to his lips. “Other things.”

"What other things?” she asked.

“You know.”

“I don’t,” she said.

He flipped through her shelves, tossing her things around and rummaging through every little nook and cranny he could find. 

"Drugs?" the man suggested. 

"I don't have drugs here!" she exclaimed. "I'm not...I'm not a druggie. I don't know what information you have. But I do _not_ have anything here."

The man laughed and shook his head, tossing her living room pillows to the floor and pulling out the couch cushions. He slid his hands into the confines of the couch and felt around. 

“I don’t have anything here, I promise.” She put her hands up in front of her to show she meant no ill-will and would do nothing, backing slowly down the hall of her home towards her back bedroom. “Please, I don’t have what you’re looking for. I think you should leave.”

The man noticed her disappearing and turned from the couch to trail after her.

“But we were looking for you, Liling-chan!” he said.

Two arms wrapped around her body from behind and held her in place. She shrunk at the sound of her name from the mouth of a snake, venom and fangs.

Those arms held above and below her breasts like burning ropes, holding tightly onto her shoulders and pressing her back to their front.

A whisper in her ear. “We’ve got everything we need right here.”

“I don’t know my dad’s work,” she said. A feeble attempt. “I can’t help you.”

Another whisper. “You can.”

Those heavy arms carried her into the living room again and forced her down to the floor. 

From the back rooms, a gathering of other men entered the light, all with their faces covered. She was too fearful to think clearly, but she supposed there were about six of them, some carrying large crates, briefcases, bags. 

The man with the crossbody bag engaged in quick-tongued speech with his friends, though V managed to catch _Jotaro Shobo_ thrown around periodically, pieced in-between phrases and sentences she didn’t know. Her stomach clenched. She hadn’t seen him in nearly a year. Good riddance. Spit on his name and salt the earth behind her.

“Is that who sent you?” she asked quietly. “Jotaro? What does he have to do with me?”

The man laughed and looked to the others, shaking his head and continuing their chat in Japanese, ignoring her.

“What does he want with me?” she asked again. “What does he want?”

They ignored her, checking around the corners of her apartment and in all of the rooms.

“What does he want?” she repeated, more forcefully this time; her attempt at standing her ground.

“You home alone?” one man asked.

The men made motions towards her body, pointing at different areas and making comments in Japanese. She recognized very little, catching phrases here and there, though mostly nothing.

The main man with the white menpō, who hadn’t touched her, pulled a camera from that black crossbody at his side and set the lens, turning and twisting until it clicked into the place he was looking for. He held it to his eye and muttered an order to the others, again in words she didn’t know.

Leaning against her with his knee, he got in close and examined her body, ordering the others to pull her every which way at his whim.

The flash pinged in bright lights through the room as they photographed her, turning her body in strange positions to take note of every nook and cranny. The scar on her left inner elbow, the freckles on her right leg, the birthmark on her neck.

She heard one of them say Jotaro’s name again, and she offered a faint, “What?” out to them.

The man with the camera conferred with the others and then pulled a cellphone from his bag, tapping on the screen and then holding the phone out for a moment.

V could hear the call ringing faintly on the other end. The cameraman stood from where he’d had her pinned beneath his knee and stepped away from the group to take his phone conversation elsewhere.

A man to her right slipped a chip into the slot of her head before she could notice it, and it clicked into place. Numbers rolled across her eyes and she felt a brief string of weakness overtake her, nauseous from there having been no period of care before hastily slapping the data drive into place.

“Wha-what is this?” she asked, and struggled against where her arms were being held. “What did you do?”

A few of the men set out a series of metal cases on the floor a few feet from her, computer monitors and amplifiers, boom speakers and cords flying every which way as they plugged in their machines to the outlets around her apartment.

“What are you doing?” she asked, voice strained. Her hair was sticking to her face from the sweat of her stress and she had no use of her arms to move it out of her eyes.

The man with the camera returned, taking a look at her and nodding.

"What are you doing?" she repeated.

He sat on the floor before the computers and typed ferociously upon multiple keyboards, his left hand wrapped in an electronic glove which motion controlled the system. “Scrolling,” he said, placing a wreath over his head and situating it carefully, adjusting its straps and knobs. 

She blanched hot white across her body, and asked, “Scrolling what?”

“You.”

She pushed their hands away and made feeble sounds from the back of her throat, the screams and sad moans breaking free in uncontrollable sobs. Words crumbled inside of her like ice cubes crushed under a mallet, smashed into sharp shrapnel in her throat, which cut her and made her bleed. Her neck and face felt strained and hot as she pulled and twisted, struggling noises escaping which she did not know she could make.

She bit an arm where it had been wrapped around her neck and one of the men pulled away with a sharp inhale of breath, shaking out the offended limb and giving her a look which would surely break her if it had a body of its own. He backhanded her with an explosive clash of skin-on-skin just as quickly, and she slumped into the arms of the others holding her down. 

Closing her eyes, she forced her mind onto anything but what was happening, a tactic she had developed as a child at the hands of Jotaro Shobo.

She thought of her day.

Her day.

Day. Sun. Heat.

Jackie, Misty, and her had gone out to a Six Flags a few hours outside the city. It had been Misty’s idea, her suggestion of something fun they could all do together that wouldn’t leave anyone feeling like a third-wheel.

V had never been one to scream on rollercoasters – a fact she found strange. She never understood why people did this. Was it a choice? Was it something that happened without the person realizing it?

They’d spent the day trying their hardest to get Jackie to puke, because he swore he'd never once barfed in his whole life. He downed two bottles of water and then specifically chose all the rides that went upside down, but he never coughed a single drop. 

There was one ride, though, that had gotten both of them.

It held its passengers in a circle, strapped with their feet hanging down and facing outwards.

V hadn't felt afraid when she'd gotten on, strapped in, but when that ride climbed slowly into the air, her stomach clenched and her hands shot out for her friends’, one seated on each side of her.

At the very top, it lingered. And from all the way up there, she felt like she might be able to see all the way back to Night City. This was, of course, not actually possible. But it felt that way.

And when it finally fell, for the first time ever on any ride she’d ever been on, she screamed.

_Her shirt was pulled from every angle by multiple rough hands and she clamped her eyes shut as hard as she could. It was difficult to stay in the world she was trying to remember._

The ride shot up.

_The sides of her jeans were ripped apart, the button being violently torn from where it had lain secure, her zipper busted in an instant._

The ride shot down.

_She scrambled on the floor, her pants being peeled forcefully from her legs as she crawled like a dog across the wooded panels of her living room._

The ride shot up.

A scream.

A hollowed lung.

_Her legs kicked with a sense of protection her brain was unaware of, her last systems of defense caving in around her. Dragged by her ankles, rough hands squeezed painfully around them, her sweaty body stuck against the floor and screaming out as her skin slid painfully across the wood. Clawing with her fingers to find salvation among the dogs._

The ride fell down.

Jackie laughed and hollered out into the open air of the mountains which held the park, and V joined him, calling out and screaming with anything she had left in her body. She had never felt as free as she had that day.

_Pushing hands away from her legs as a thousand eyes fell upon her, scratching and touching and grabbing where they didn’t belong. Echoes of a voice called from her lungs, but did not remain where she had left it. There was no V in voice, that day. Only the Ice of it remained._

_She didn't want to find the O._

Jackie clamped a hand on her back and tugged her into his side as they walked away from the ride. “Fuckin’ preem!” he said with a laugh. His hair was short and wild and messy – not yet cut into the Samurai bun he would one day sport.

_V shoved her hands around wherever they would go, forcing away with weakening, reckless abandon to any place they could help her. Her wrists were held down to the floor by the dull ache of combat boots stepping on her bones and she screamed. Or she thought she did. It was a scream which occurred as an alarm. Perhaps not from her own voice box at all._

Jackie pulled the car over to puke on the side of the road about twenty minutes after they left the park. V and Misty laughed and ate Twizzlers as they sat with the car doors opened, feet outside on the blacktop, catching what little breeze they could with no air-conditioning working in Jackie’s old Cadillac Eldorado.

It was a sweltering Californian July day, with heatwaves visible on the horizon as they made their way back to the city. Sweat dripped from the back of V’s neck and she chugged thirstily on a bottle of water.

_Stretched apart like a pig ripped from throat to groin in a grindhouse and hung to bleed, she felt her body break as a wishbone that promised no miracles._

V poured water over Jackie’s head and he shook his hair out like a wet dog, spraying cool droplets all over her where she stood at his side. He ran his palm over his face to wipe away the sweat and water and then turned to the car and took a Twizzler from the bag in Misty’s hand, tucking it into his mouth and holding it there like a piece of hay. V cringed at the thought of him eating again after barfing profusely. Just like Jackie.

_Slaughtered like an animal, V felt nausea hold itself in her throat like a jawbreaker trapped in her maw. She wanted to puke. Maybe they would leave if they found her to be too disgusting. Maybe the burning bile of her stomach could end the suffering._

Jackie fell asleep in the backseat on the drive back – head in V’s lap – and Misty took the wheel. She held his head steadily as they made their way along the winding roads of the Badlands back to the city, keeping him secure in her arms and hoping there weren’t too many bumps so he could keep sleeping.

_A forced orgasm. The O in voice. Emotions she was neither here nor there for. Her body betraying her, mind and flesh unconnected, torn apart like a baby from a womb._

The three of them had retired to the living room for a short while after they’d gotten home, watching late-night sitcom re-runs and playing her old Nintendo.

Laughter.

The last laughter of her day. The last laughter of her life.

She tried to remember what it felt like to be inside of that happiness.

_Filled, full to exploding, her body expanding like a beached whale, growing larger and larger than anything else in the apartment. They laughed at her. Laughed at her as she cried._

Jackie fell asleep on the couch, clutching a pillow, his shirt off in the summer night and pooled on the floor at his side. V wetted a towel and pressed a temporary tattoo to his cheek of a bumblebee.

_The apartment, full of more people than had ever been there before, felt emptier than when it was filled with the happiness of her friends. Cheeks dried with tears and body unable to take much more, she could feel the most excruciating pain she had ever faced before coming from her leg. Her eyes, blurred and unseeing, couldn’t bare to look at what was happening. If she screamed, she couldn’t hear it anymore._

Misty and her danced in the living room to V’s records, tossing one another around, sleepy and excited about being alive, donned in long dresses from her closet.

_Something was gone. Something was terribly wrong – if it were even possible at all to have become worse than it already was. She couldn’t walk. Couldn’t feel. There was wetness everywhere. Red. Bleeding. Torn to bursting. Empty._

Misty had left hand-in-hand with Jackie around ten, giving V a last hug before departing. She’d seen her friends off to Jackie’s car and headed back inside. They’d made plans to meet at Tom’s Diner in the morning.

_An open door. A rush of cool night air. Her body, exposed, felt suddenly all too feeling at the touch of cold. Hands carried her far and wide, and she knew that she could see a sky of stars above._

She was there. And Jackie and Misty weren’t. Her daydreamed illusion wearing down from the dissociative state it had provided her.

The Tyger Claws carried her to an alley near the building and dumped her into the trash, her naked body falling limp among the refuse. They laughed, but she could hear so very little, and they left.

She lay there for a very, very long time.

 _This was the end_ , she thought. _I can’t survive this._

Not because it was physically impossible…but because she didn’t want to.

The sounds of passersby came to her, faint and echoing. Whispers descended towards her, and shoes scattered away, avoiding her body where she lay amongst the trash.

She rolled onto her stomach and tried to drag herself, pulling with her arms as best she could. Standing was no option. It would no longer have been possible.

She called out with a voice she didn’t feel she had anymore to anyone who would stop and help. But Night City was a place where people minded their business. And help wasn’t readily given.

People passed the alley and ignored her, whether willfully or not, and she cried to herself, letting her face fall to the ground below.

Far in the distance, no, not far at all – someone approached her where she lay on her stomach, face against the blacktop of the alleyway.

It was a man, thick-rimmed glasses just barely visible to her as he came closer. He was stoutly, tattoos on his arms, though he was blurry in her eyes which ran with blood and sweat. Rushing towards her as he saw what was happening, she saw a beacon of light in the darkness.

The more he inched towards her, though, the more his appearance changed and meshed into something – someone – entirely different.

Her savior in the suffering was not who he was supposed to be. No. This was wrong. This wasn’t how it ended.

_‘A fucking mirage in the desert.’_

Before her, all black boots and dog tags and condescending attitudes – Johnny stepped up to her and stood, staring down at where she lay.

_“Johnny…?”_

_‘You hid this well, V,’_ he said, and something like a laugh escaped him. But it wasn’t a laugh. It was angered upset. _‘Had to fucking dig through the tar in your brain to get here. Why’d you act like you didn’t know why they were there? You fucking knew, V. You fucking knew.’_

_* * * * *_

Panicked breaths which fled within and without her lungs woke her in an instant. She flopped in the sheets frantically like a fish above water and screamed an unintended, “No!” as she scrambled to remove herself from the too-tight bindings of her bedsheets.

She clattered to the floor onto her knees, pulling the covers with her body as she tried to crawl away from the hands that held her down and hurt her.

“V!?” someone called, but she didn’t know where she was, or who was there with her.

“Stop!” she yelled, but she didn’t know why.

In and out, she breathed. In and out. In and out.

_Shaky._

_Weightless._

_Heavy._

_Sharp._

_Soft._

_Thin._

_Thick._

Everything at once. Everything too much.

“V, what is wrong?” the person spoke in worried tones of concern. “What am I to do?”

She covered her face in fear and kept breathing. _Maybe if she stayed still, they would go away._ _Maybe if she pretended not to be there, she could live through this._

“V?” they called again, pain in their voice evident through the cracks. “V, please. You are scaring me.”

Heaving in and out...in and out...in and out. 

Looking to the ceiling, she saw the glow-in-the-dark stars of her bedroom. Her bedroom in Night City. Night City 2077. 

In and out. 

In and out. 

Slower, now, she looked to the door. Closed. 

In and out. 

In and out. 

Takemura sat on her bed, frozen to the spot.

And she laughed.

She laughed and rolled onto her back. Laughter and tears in equal measure.

“Now I am confused," Takemura said. She could barely see him through the dark of the room. 

They had fallen asleep after he'd been there. He was there. Had been there. She was fine. He was still wearing his clothes from the night before.

“I was just dreaming.” She placed a hand against her chest to feel the horse-race rush of her heartbeat. “I was _just_ dreaming.”

Takemura sat up on his knees on the bed, hair down and shirt untucked and unbuttoned at the top, chest somewhat able to be seen. He was visibly more relaxed and untethered than V had ever seen him. To be all messy like he was in that moment wasn’t at all the Takemura she had known at Konpeki.

He ran a hand through his hair in exasperation and said, “Why…why are you laughing?”

“Because it’s funny,” V said, unable to catch her breath or her giggles. “Because it’s _so_ funny.”

He remained where he sat, though V knew he must have been battling not getting up immediately and rushing to her side.

“What is funny?” he asked.

“That I thought it was real,” she said. “Isn’t that funny?”

He opened his mouth, shook his head. “I do not know,” he said slowly. “I do not understand why you laugh.”

“I don’t either,” she said, and a wash of discomfort overcame her. “I don’t either.”

Standing carefully, Takemura crossed from her bed to where she had clambered to the floor and he knelt at her side, pulling the sheets the rest of the way off and over to them. He wrapped her shoulders in a thick blanket. 

"You are not okay," he said. And she nodded. Her breath hitched and she wanted to cry again. She leaned her forehead against him and closed her eyes. 

"I have to tell you something," she said. 

He held her face to him with a tenderly placed hand. "What?" he asked calmly. 

"It's important," she said. 

"I think that if it is important, it can wait until you are in a better place mentally."

She nodded against him. "Okay," she said. "Okay."

"Do you want to go back to sleep?" he asked. 

"Yes, please," she said. 

He scooped her up into his arms and brought her back to the bed, settling her and her blankets back where they had been before and tucking her in carefully. 

"You're not gonna leave, are you?" she asked, reaching out a hand to grab his shirt-sleeve. 

"Do you want me to?"

"No," she said. "I want you to stay."

"Then I will stay," he said, and climbed back into bed at her side. 

He placed his left hand over her cheek and brushed her hair out of her eyes. 

"You need help, V," he said. "You are not okay."

A strained cry rang from her throat and she felt suffocated. She shuffled closer towards him and into his chest. 

"I know," she said, nodding against him and burying her face as far as it could be hidden. "I know."

_"We will get you help."_

"Do you promise?" she asked.

_"I promise."_


	13. For A Man Who Can Follow His Heart

C H A P T E R T H I R T E E N

_For A Man Who Can Follow His Heart_

It had taken these months of their being together for V to realize something important about Johnny Silverhand. Perhaps the most important thing of all.

Johnny was alone.

Having been away from the world for so many years, he had returned with nothing to his name. Had been torn with rotten teeth from his previous body as meat is from a bone, then thrown to the dogs of complete irrelevancy where they would feast on the idea of him – in lieu of the actual man himself – for decades.

_Complete irrelevancy._

V, through their compulsory physical and emotional bonding, had begun to understand this as a state of being which Johnny struggled to cope with.

To have nothing. To be nothing. To not exist.

In all of their time spent in one another’s company, he had only once requested something of V which pertained to his past – a contact with Rogue. And even this had resulted in very little camaraderie, with Rogue having been many years on in her life, far surpassing that brash and candid woman whom Johnny remembered her as.

V had begun to understand a series of knots. A series of knots which were tied as memories in the webs of Johnny’s mind. Her mind. _Their_ mind. A shared consciousness. Knots like these, wrapped in mortal coils like a nervous stomach, told V that the man for whom arrogant posturing could be an Olympic sport was, in reality, the most mentally vulnerable person she had ever known.

Tear down the wallpaper in his heart and find the dusty and limp bodies of lifeless moths. Where once there were fireflies glimmering in the nighttime and shining bright in the darkness of his heart, now there were moths, moths which flew into the light of flame and caught fire.

Better to burn out than to fade away?

Johnny would say yes. V would say no. But their conflicting perspectives paralleled one another as a blurred reflection. Johnny’s yes _was_ V’s no, and V’s no _was_ Johnny’s yes. How easy it would be for a muffin to become a cupcake by adding a little frosting, yes? And how simple it would be for His thoughts to become Hers. To change, to fold, to grow – mutable, languid as water, but as scorched as molten steel.

“I have something I want to share with you,” she said, standing with her eyes set out towards the city on one early evening on a Wednesday. Arms covering her chest – crossed – communicating a reserved sensibility, one which she ever teetered on the edge of in the presence of the man who wasn’t quite Robert John Linder or Johnny Silverhand.

His interest was peaked at these words.

Interest felt like the color pink, in V’s mind, spreading across her brain as it occurred within Johnny. His emotions were as flavors to her, a taste of thought as sweet as candy. The fleshy, human emotions of reality were gray in comparison to the way his mind inside her own was as liquid sweetener in a cup of coffee.

“Oh?” he mused aloud. Aloud. Well. Aloud within the tangible yet confined hallucinations of V’s mind.

Feet up on the table of her sitting area as they often were, Johnny was flipping through those motorcycle magazines which Jackie had left behind. V had relented her hiding of them and allowed him to peruse as he pleased.

She ran her upper teeth along her bottom lip, somewhat dry, needing lip balm. “Do you remember your parents, Johnny?” she asked, stare fixed out the window still.

Pages flipped with papery flutters, and V heard the flop of the magazine Johnny had been holding as it was placed onto the table. He cleared his throat lightly, a tense ambiguity. “Eh…” he dragged out. “I, uh… _parents_. Hm. Don’t mix well with me.”

V turned to him, vague grin growing. “Midlife teenage rebellion?” she suggested, and he tossed a pillow her way, but she caught it.

“Oh, fuck you.” He laughed and relaxed more loosely where he sat, tension falling from his shoulders. “More like I came from the gutter and I stayed there. And…and they’re all long gone, now. So many years on.” He pulled a phantom cigarette from the air and lit up, slipping it between his lips and taking an imaginary memory of a puff, which bore no taste or scent. “Eh, fuck it all.”

V surveyed him with curious scrutiny as he repeated the motions of smoking which were as secondhand to him as being an asshole was to the crack of his backside. Johnny had used that exact phrasing to her once and she caught a bout of giggles every time she remembered it.

“Do you want to meet _my_ family?” she asked.

Cigarette pressed between his left pointer and middle fingers, he flicked his eyes to her and secured them there for a moment, throwing her own thoughtful gaze back as a ball into her court.

“Meaning what?” he asked, voice graveled with the suggestion of a smoker’s drawl, like smooth whiskey poured over a roasted hog’s flank in a steakhouse.

“I mean…” V said, and breathed out, eyes shooting to the upper-right of her lids and then back to him. “I mean I want to introduce you to some people. But…you have to promise to be open to it.”

His brow raised. “Open to it?” he pressed. “Open to _what?”_

“Just…” V said. “Just open emotionally. Earnestly.”

Leaning forward on the couch and removing his feet from the table, he flicked the burnt-out cigarette into the air and it vanished. “Well, now,” he said with a smirk. “I guess I’m intrigued, V.”

Patting his palms against his thighs once, he stood with a slight bounce and crossed to where she stood, hanging his thumbs in his belt-loops.

“So,” he said. “We goin’ now?”

“Yeah,” she said with a nod that needed to convince her just as much as it needed to affirm him. “Yeah…we’ll go now.”

Johnny caught the snag in her tone, and commented, “Why so quiet all a sudden, V?”

He reached out and tapped against her right upper-arm with the side of his fingers, like the world’s softest karate-chop.

“Somethin’ up?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know."

"Well," he said, "if you don't know, then I guess I don't either."

V shook off the feeling of what she'd really wanted to say and buried it beneath sand in her mind, keeping him from knowing.

"Alright," she said, turning to walk towards the door. "Let's go."

* * * * *

“Who’s this?”

“My older sister.”

There they stood in the columbarium once again, deep within the rows to the right side, and gathered together around a collection of three burial markers.

Evening was settling upon them more clearly now, with rays of the last sunlight being clouded over by the suggestion of a possible storm. Every so often, a raindrop would fall and V would swear she must have imagined it as it landed in a tiny pinprick of coolness upon her skin and then disappeared. 

In her hands, V held a collection of flowers which she had picked up from a stand on their way out of her apartment building. She slid open the container of the grave and placed a few inside, then closed it again. 

Johnny stared with an expression V couldn't read towards the name upon the memorial. 

“I didn’t know you had a sister," he said.

“I didn’t,” V admitted. “Not really. She died when she was a baby. Before I was born.”

“Ah…jeez…I, uh…sorry, I…sorry…”

“It’s okay. It was a long time ago. I think it’s better to keep her alive by remembering her. She’s worth remembering. I was my parent’s miracle baby, after losing her.”

Reaching up, Johnny ran his left thumb across the letters of the engraving. “Hóng Biyu. Hanna Siallou.” He spread the rest of his fingers over her name. “When…uh…when did she die?”

V placed her own hand over his, faint to the touch, and said, “She was born in April of 2050, and passed that May. Sudden crib death.” Her hand fell away. “My…my parents never forgave themselves.”

Johnny’s own fingers dropped to his side and he looked down at the ground below them, crossing his arms over his chest and shuffling with unease. It flooded V like the color red, but diluted. It was prickly. “That’s…heavy," he said. 

“It’s alright." V gave him a performatory smile to show just how _alright_ it truly was, or, that she wished it were. “Now I have a little angel to protect me wherever I go. Maybe she’ll rub off on you a little bit, huh?” She placed her hand on his shoulder. “Help us get your body back.”

Johnny reached and placed his own hand over hers where she held him, returning the gesture from before, now in the reverse. He gave her a small smile to match her own, and she tucked it away in her memories as a little victory. Johnny was softening up like butter on a windowsill in the sunlight.

“Thank you,” he offered quietly, eyes shooting away from her, downwards. “Y’know…for…for sharing this.”

V pulled her hand away and he released her from his palm. She turned to look at the memorial again.

“I like to come here and ask her for advice sometimes,” she said, gesturing towards the wall. “She’s good at giving it. And she’s a good listener. Maybe you could ask something sometime, if…if you want to.”

A sniffle quirked at her ears and she turned her head to see Johnny masquerading teardrops by reaching beneath his sunglasses and pinching at his nose-bridge, pulling them away. “Damn, V,” he said, sniffling harshly. “You really know how to make a grown man cry.” He cleared his throat and shook out his shoulders, standing straighter. “Or, I mean, uh…who’s been choppin’ those fuckin' onions again?”

Looking downwards, V averted her gaze from Johnny. She thought about the difference in their shoes. His black boots to her pink sneakers. What a strange and beautiful opposite.

“My family wasn’t why I brought you here,” she admitted, with as much sheepish honesty as could possibly spill from her lips.

“What?” Johnny asked, tapping her chin gently with two fingers to make her catch his eyes again. “What do you mean?”

She pulled her face into a kind of apologetic mush. “I mean,” she said, “I really wanted to bring you here for something else. For _someone_ else.”

Fingertips still dancing on the edge of her skin, he asked, “Who?”

She grabbed his hand from her and held it in her own, dropping them downwards to be clasped between them. Pulling on his arm to usher him back down the rows of graves, she said, “C’mon. It’s over here.”

They trailed into the center of the area and headed to its innermost section, where Night City’s best and brightest – read: richest – inhabitants were memorialized in stone.

Stopping at the left side of alcove, V pointed towards the subject of her intentions. Six words. A name for the first three, and a lyrical promise for the others.

“It’s you,” she said.

_Robert John Linder. Never Fade Away._

Johnny sucked in a brief breath of air, almost imperceptibly, and held it. His body was tense as iron and his chin quivered in the tiniest tremble. A gentle earthquake.

“Oh,” he said, and that held breath blew out all at once in deflation. If Johnny were a balloon, he’d float up…up…away.

V placed her left hand softly on his upper-arm, and asked quietly, “You okay?”

He cleared his throat, performatory at best to show just how _okay_ he really was, like she had done eariler. “Yes,” he said. “Fine.”

“That true?”

“Yep,” he said, popping the end of the word a bit too much. He was deflecting.

“You’re not fine,” she said. “Be honest.”

“Honest?” He tossed a quick breathless laugh out. “You couldn’t…you couldn’t…”

“What?” she asked. “I can’t handle the truth?”

He waved his hand towards the marker of his own self, and said, “This is just…god damn.”

“People remember you, Johnny,” V said. "You haven't been forgotten."

“You don’t know the first thing about it, V.”

“You’re being defensive,” she said.

“Fuck you, V.”

She backed away, and said, “Sorry. I thought you’d be happy.”

“I haven’t been happy my entire life," he spit out, and she blanched.

“Okay," she said. 

She turned away, awkwardly, and distanced herself another step from him. Looking forward, she directed her line of sight towards the plaque beside Johnny’s.

“Alt Cunningham,” she said, pressing her right fingertips against the holographic letters. “I know that name.”

Johnny shook his head and crossed his arms – walls up and firmly fortified – thrusting his thumb dismissively at the name, then looking away.

“Yeah…famous netrunner,” he said bitterly. “Be surprised if you didn’t.”

“No,” V said. “I know from my memories. I know from…from _your_ memories. Alt Cunningham.” She looked at him. “Alteria.”

He shook his head again, deliberate, frustrated, and made all efforts to avoid allowing her to look straight into his eyes. He pushed his sunglasses further up his nose.

“She was very beautiful,” V offered.

“Yeah.” He scoffed loudly. Those walls around him were being wrapped in barbed wire, bulletproof vest of his emotions deflecting the confrontation. “Tell me three other things about her.”

“I’m sorry...that you lost her, Johnny.” V thought of what was appropriate to say in this situation. She didn’t want to lose him. Didn’t want him to run away. She placed a hand on his forearm and asked, “Was she…was she your special person?”

He shrugged her hand off and V retracted, ringing her fingers together awkwardly.

“What are we, twelve?” he shot out, scoffing again. He shook his head in chide. _“‘Special person’.”_

“It’s okay to be upset about her being gone, Johnny.”

He shook his head again and looked upwards to the sky. If it were possible for him to cry – really, _cry_ – he would surely be trying to will those tears back inside and feign a sense of stoic pride.

“When my mom died,” V said, “I felt like…like _I_ died. Like life was over, because…because without her in it, how was time supposed to go on?”

Johnny backed away, holding up a hand towards V to indicate a need for distance between the two of them.

“I think I need some air,” he said breathlessly, and backed away from the wall, from their conversation.

He turned and stalked off in the opposite direction, though he didn’t disappear. And V counted this on the invisible list of notable moments in the life of Johnny’s ghost.

He walked away. Didn’t hide back inside her mind. He was angry, upset, flustered, and frustrated – and yet, she could still _see_ him. How easy it would be for him to blip out of existence and give her the silent treatment for a while, as was typical of him, and yet he didn’t.

V considered that perhaps the emotions were so strong and tangible that he had forgotten his own ability to just slip away back into the recesses of her mind.

Or, it was also possible that while he needed space, what he really wanted was for her to see him like this. That he was allowing it.

So she followed him.

He headed back to the entrance and flopped down on the left-hand side of the steps leading up to the area. Tapping his right foot anxiously, he leaned his elbows on his knees and looked out over the parking lot, half cast in light as the evening sun passed behind a cloud.

Approaching apprehensively, V sat at his side, careful as to not disturb the fragile doe of Johnny’s emotions in the forest of their conversation. He barely reacted, and this, too, was a miracle of a step in their comfortability with one another.

They sat there, and V wasn’t sure for how long. Maybe it was minutes. Maybe an hour. Maybe no time at all. They watched as people passed within and without the columbarium in groups of two, three, four, five. Somewhere, deep inside, V could feel Johnny thinking about Alt, and so she purposely tried to insert images of anything else into their shared consciousness. She counted how many people wore blue shirts and how many wore yellow. Blue had six, and yellow had four. She counted how many wore canvas sneakers. Only three. Counted how many had on hats. Seven. How many had pockets. Eleven.

“Stop thinking about everybody’s clothes, V.”

She laughed and turned to him. “You can see that?”

“Of course I can fucking see that, V. You’re so annoying.”

She was worried ever briefly that she’d actually bothered him, but the quirk at the edge of his mouth said otherwise.

“Oh?” She pointed at his lips. “I think I see a smile.”

He shook his head off as if wiping it away, and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Looking out to the street, he pressed his lips into a tight thin line, but that smile was still perking up at the edges.

V leaned her shoulder against his and he let out a breath of air with a short laugh, and she said, “I was worried I’d pushed you too far.”

“I needed it,” he said. “I was just being an ass.”

“No,” she said. “You weren’t. I don’t know if I’d want to see my own grave if I were dead. Well…like a grave.”

“Just so insane,” he said. “Can’t fucking believe it’s true. Guess I really am dead.”

“Not yet,” V said, placing a hand on his knee. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

He watched the cars pass on the street, and said, “Almost make me want to believe it.”

V watched the same cars that he watched, and resigned into silence again, though comfortable this time.

“Don’t put your sadness on a shelf.”

“What?” Johnny asked. “What’s that?”

“If you put your sadness on a shelf, it’ll only get dusty.”

“Is that from somethin’?” he asked, leaning back on his elbows placed on the step behind him. He stretched his legs out.

“Just think about it,” V said. “That’s all.”

“Alright,” he said, somewhat dismissively, but only in that Johnny way that told her his ego wasn’t ready to take something seriously right to someone’s face.

“What was something Alt loved?” V asked. _“Really_ loved?”

“Hole.”

V quirked her face curiously. “Hole?” she asked.

“The band,” he said. “She loved…she loved the band, Hole. Y’know, Courtney Love.”

“Okay.” V dragged the word out in a lengthy breath, turning her eyes to the sky and remembering the time of evening that had fallen over them. “I think we should go back to that record store, Time Machine, buy a Hole album, and bring it here and put it in Alt’s box.”

Johnny laughed, and this surprised V, so she looked to him in question. “What?” she asked.

“Nothin,” he said, shaking his head and looking to the ground beneath their feet. “Just…you. The way you are.”

V leaned against his shoulder again. “What?” she asked. “What way that I am?”

“You always find a way.”

“Find a way?” she repeated. “What do you mean?”

“Find a way to keep going,” he said. “Make me want to…want to think I can put tape over all the cuts in my past.”

“How about you talk to her?" V suggested, pushing up from the steps and holding her hand out towards him. "Come on, let’s go say what you couldn’t say, back then.”

He stared at her hand as if it were a foreign object for a moment, and then slipped his hand into hers and allowed her to guide the two of them back to Alt's memorial. 

Standing in front of it, V watched Johnny expectantly for him to speak.

He turned back to her at his side, and said, “V, this is stupid.”

She shook her head and placed her hands on his shoulders, turning him back to Alt’s placement, saying, “It’s not stupid if you decide it isn’t.”

He hesitated, saying nothing for a few seconds, and V waited quietly for him to express what he needed to.

“I miss her every day.”

“I know,” V offered kindly. “I know you do.”

“I loved her so much…and I never told her.”

Flashes of blonde hair were passing through V’s mind like wisps, ghosts in the machine of the chip trapped inside her brain.

“What would you tell her now, if you could see her again?”

Laughing without humor, an exasperated chuckle, he said, “Before or after she kicked my ass?”

“After.”

“I’d tell her I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry that I’m so goddamn stupid.”

“And what would she say back?”

“She…she’d tell me to…to give her a hug. But I’d say no. Because…because I’m an asshole.”

V held her hand out with the flowers she’d brought, and Johnny took hold of them, staring down at them as if they were a very strange and confusing object which he had never seen. He pinched a petal between his fingers and released it.

“Stupid things’ll…just die, anyway,” he said. Looking down, he grazed the toe of his left boot absentmindedly along the tarmac beneath them, producing a small scratching sound which punctuated the momentary silence between his words. “What’s the point?”

“You’re right,” V said. “No matter what you do to flowers that’ve been cut from their roots, you can’t make them live.”

“Yeah,” Johnny said belligerently. “And?”

 _"And_ ,” she continued, “you can add water, give them sunlight, give them air. Nothing will save them. But that doesn’t mean it was pointless. What matters is the time you spent caring for them. The time you spent making their last moments worthwhile. It doesn’t matter if the flowers are dead; it matters that you loved them. They mattered…because of you.”

“Like me.”

“Like you?”

“I’m dead as dead gets,” he said, vaguely motioning towards himself. “But you still…take care of me.”

“Because I love you.”

He stunted. Hesitated. Fumbled.

“You love me?” he asked. “Since when?”

“Since I decided to.”

“What?”

“When I die,” she said, “and you become me? I want you to remember what happened…and feel at peace with it.”

“I won’t be at peace if you’re dead, V.”

“Well, would you rather be inside someone you hated?” she pressed. “How about Saburo Arasaka? Maybe that was his intention.”

“Don’t say that. I’m not gonna erase you, V. We’re both gonna be okay.”

“If you say so.”

_And he hugged her._

Hugged her, pulling her as close as possible – as close as what his heart was needing in that moment, impulsive and heavy as water – propelling her head into his chest and holding her there, one hand over her hair and the other on her back.

“Oh?” V asked, face pressed into him, turned sideways. “What’s this for?”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” he said. “Weird?”

“No,” she said. “We all do things we don’t understand when we feel too much.”

Johnny's arms were slightly claustrophobic, but it was a comforting suffocation. 

She pulled away and motioned for him to place the flowers in the box, and Johnny did so, sliding the last of them into Alt's and then closing it again. 

"C'mon," V said, placing her hand on his back. "Let's get outta here."

When they got to the entrance, Johnny sat at the steps again, though this time on the right side. Catching wind that he'd stopped, V turned and said, "Something wrong?"

"Nah," he said, patting the spot at his side. "Just want to hang a little longer. Not ready to go home yet."

V nodded, and said, "Alright. We can do that." 

Taking the seat next to him, they sat in quietness for a few minutes, watching the clouds roll overhead and promise that rain that surely would come soon.

“If Alt was a flower…” V mused, “what kind of flower would she have been?”

“Sunflower.”

V smiled, exhaled a small breath through her nose, and said, “That your final answer?”

“Yeah. Sunflower. Tall and bright…and blonde, I guess.” He laughed. “Reaching up for the sky. That was Alt.”

“Maybe that’s what she is now.”

“What?”

“Maybe she came back as a sunflower. Next time you see one, try thinking of it as her way of saying hello.”

“Sunflowers…and Cherry Blossoms. I guess that’s just my life. Flower girls.”

Checking over him at her side, she gave an interested look. He squinted at her in question of her probing, and said, “What?”

“What did I start doing differently that made you change?” she asked. “Changed your tune.”

“You’re nice,” he said; shrugged. “Maybe you’re rubbing off on me.”

“I don’t know if I believe that.”

“Then what _do_ you believe, V?

"Nothing," she said. "Forget I said anything."

“C’mon." Johnny leaned into her. "You can’t keep secrets from me. I’ll just go digging in your brain for it.”

“Alt," she blurted out. 

"Alt?" he asked.

“I think…I think you see what happened to Alt…in me. And you don’t want to mess it up this time.”

Johnny made an indiscernible sound in his throat and leaned away from her. She pressed her eyes closed tightly, wishing she could take it back but feeling like she'd already cracked open the can of worms.

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” she asked.

He looked at her with a wild look of some emotion she couldn't read, and then he looked to the street, which bore less traffic now in the evening that encroached on night.

“I told my best friend…” He paused, tension flaring in his jaw as he clenched his teeth for a brief moment. He sighed. “I told him that I hope he died.”

“When did you do that?”

“Long, long time ago. Thank god it wasn’t the last thing I ever said to him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Did you ever apologize?”

He looked at her and said, “Who do you think I am?”

She shrugged, not taking the self-demoralizing bait.

“No,” he said, looking away again. “I didn’t.”

“Do you want to?”

“Eh…maybe just, let’s let bygones be bygones.”

“Johnny, no; this is perfect.”

“What’s perfect?”

“This is your purpose.”

“My…purpose?”

“You have all these loose ends here on earth. Maybe you need to tie them up so you can move on.”

“I’m not a ghost, V. Damn.”

“I know, but, why not?” she said. “Wouldn’t you think that it’d make you feel better to try?”

Pushing up from the steps and placing her hands on her waist, standing up tall, she asked, “So, who was your friend? I’ll see if he still lives in the city. We can go say hello!”

She stuck her right hand out for him to grab, and he regarded it with a raised brow, small grin growing. He shook his head and glanced from her hand to her face.

“Kerry,” he said. “It was Kerry.”

V’s hand dropped slowly. “No way,” she said. “Okay…that one… _might_ be a little more difficult.”

Johnny laughed and stood from the steps, hanging his right thumb from his belt loop, left hand pushing his sunglasses up onto his head. “Still think it’s a good idea?”

V thought for a moment, looking around them as the afternoon crowd thinned out, orange rays of sunlight blanketing the columbarium. “I think…I think it’s an even better idea, now.”

“Even _better_ idea now? Why?”

“Because this means you can apologize to your best friend…and smooth things over with Samurai. Two birds with one stone.”

“Hm…” Johnny looked to the sky. “I dunno, V. Some things are best left where they died.”

“Don’t let your life be roadkill, Johnny,” she said. “Let’s go scrape it up and make a rug out of it.”

“Mildly disgusting,” he remarked. “But…you’re right.”

“So…wanna go now?” she asked.

He nodded, released a breath, and said, “Alright. Alright, let’s fucking go. How we doin’ this?”

“I’ll…I’ll take some of Misty’s pills,” she said. “Let you take care of it. Got any ideas?”

“I got some notion,” he said. “Some tricks up my sleeve. You sure you’re okay with that?”

“I’m sure,” she said. “I…I trust you.”

* * * * *

“Okay, I admit I’m having second thoughts.”

Standing at the gate of Kerry Eurodyne’s multi-million-dollar mansion in Westbrook, night had fallen over them, sky darkened to a blackish blue and moon peering down at them like a giant tortilla. 

Johnny laughed. “Cold feet?”

“Much easier said than done,” V decided. “Didn’t actually imagine it’d be this…fortified.”

“What?” Johnny laughed again. “Never been on one of those bus tours that take you to all the famous people’s houses in the city?” He gestured towards the gate. “You’ve really never been up here?”

“Never interested me,” she said. “Not my price-range. And I think houses like this are kinda…ugly. It’s too modern. Feels shallow.”

“A woman after my own heart,” Johnny mused. “Dumb rich folk.”

She turned to him, hands together anxiously, and said, “I don’t know, Johnny. I don’t think I should break in. Feels kinda…illegal.”

“Kerry’s cool,” he said. “Well, he was back then. He’ll be fine once he knows who we are.”

“But he doesn’t know who I am.”

“Well, you’re with me, so, it’s fine. It’ll be fine. Now get your ass in there!”

“Alright, alright, hold your horses.”

Jumping up the wall and using her sneakers to grip her way upwards, she climbed onto the top and vaulted over, landing in the perfectly dark green, coifed grass of Kerry’s yard.

“No motion sensors,” she remarked. “Seems odd.”

Johnny reappeared in front of her, looking around, and said, “Kerry’s a private dude. Probably not one for much security. Guess Big Brother hasn’t brainwashed him entirely in all these years.”

Raindrops began to splatter coldly onto V’s head and she looked up, catching a few on her face, which made her close her eyes and wipe them from her skin with her fingertips.

“Seems like a storm” she said. “Let’s find a way inside."

Johnny pointed off in the distance at blurred movement coming from the driveway. “Watch out,” he said. “Think there’s some bots over there. Terminator style, you know the type.”

“Gotcha,” she said, peering to look and catching sight of what Johnny had been gesturing towards. Two silvery bots with assault rifles patrolled that side of the house. In the darkness and impending rain, bypassing them would likely cause little trouble. 

Head ducked to avoid the possibility of cameras, V darted across the yard and crouched at the corner of the mansion, peeking out to watch the routine paths of the bots, and then darting out again when they were no longer in range to see her. 

_Too easy,_ she thought. _Why's security so bad?_

 _'Kerry can be a weird dude,'_ Johnny said in her mind. _'Doesn't surprise me.'_

Reaching out quickly to jiggle the front front door handle, it turned with ease and opened. Surprised, she released it. 

The door opened slowly, soundlessly, into the house. The instant smell of lavender wafted out alongside the distinct warmth of the indoors. “What kind of celebrity leaves their door unlocked?”

Johnny appeared inside and gestured around at the somewhat gaudy, soulless décor of a clearly wealthy man. He laughed in somewhat humored unsurprise, and said, “Kerry. That’s who.”

Cautiously, V stepped inside, closing the door behind her and sealing away the impending storm. She slipped her shoes off and flipped them around neatly to face the door, then turned to look at the expanse of the room she’d just entered.

“Well,” she said, taking in the overwhelming LED brightness of the lights all around the house, “you know him better than I do.”

Johnny placed his hand on her shoulder and trailed to her upper arm, gauging her eyes with his own, searching for some kind of imperceptible steadiness. “V, you ready? We probably don't have much time.”

Pumping her own self up as well as assuring him to her willingness, she said, “Okay. I’m ready. I’m…I’m trusting you. Please, just, go easy on me.”

“Easy as pie.”

“What kind of pie?”

“Cherry.”

She smiled. “Alright, alright. Here I go.”

Reaching into her pocket to grab two pills which she had gathered from her apartment before they'd driven to Kerry's on her bike, she held them in her hand and thumbed over them.

"All good?" Johnny asked. 

"Yeah," she said. "Just hard to swallow them dry."

"Gotcha."

Pumping herself up, she closed her eyes and tossed back the pills, trying to soften the blow by welling up as much saliva as possible. 

They traveled harshly through her throat and down into her stomach, and after a few moments' pause, the effects were near instantaneous. 

"See you on the other side," she said, feeling weak like she was being pumped with anesthesia. She felt she could barely stand, and Johnny reached out to hold her shoulders steady. 

"I won't be long," he said, and with that, V clicked out of existence.

Looking down at himself as he melded into her form, he tested each limb as it arose into his control. 

He ran his hands over her face, her arms, her legs, testing out the way it felt to be back inside of a real body again. 

Looking around the room for what he'd come here for, he landed his sights on the wall of guitars to his right, which he knew Kerry would have if he knew anything at all about Kerry.

Though, the distraction of V's body was overwhelming. If he weren't in a rush, he'd be having a hay-day right about then, but she trusted him, and he wasn't about to go back on his promise. The fun could come later, he decided. If there ever were a later to be had. 

Taking a guitar from the wall, didn’t matter which, he set his – V’s – right leg up onto the seat below the row of instruments, and put the strap over his head, settling it on his – her – shoulders.

Neck in right hand and body beneath his left, he paused for a moment to fall into that familiarity once more of what it was like to hold a guitar in his arms.

“Okay…” he whispered to himself, and reached to pull at the tuning knobs, twisting and turning to the places which were second-nature to him. Maybe not perfect, by any means, but imperfect in the unique way in which he, Johnny, individually played the instrument with his own style – something that would surely set Kerry off even if Johnny had lost all his ability to play their songs.

Plugging into a nearby amp that hadn’t been put away – frankly the whole house looked like nothing had been cleaned in weeks – Johnny practically came at that distinct crackling sound of the cable clicking into the jack socket. 

Drop D, full-step down to the hollow range Johnny lived in like the dirty little metal rat he was back then. He plucked a low E and measured it to the sound of the open D string to make sure it sounded the same. Good enough. The sounds were a little out of whack, but that was just the way he liked it.

Fuck, playing again after so long. He couldn’t believe it. Screw Kerry, he just wanted to play for himself now. It was better than sex. So _fucking_ better than sex. He’d been riding passenger to V for so long, he’d forgotten what it might feel like to be in the driver’s seat.

_Something familiar. Something fucking fast. What would get Kerry in the first note that nothing else could? Have to be something that only he – Johnny – could ever play._

He chuckled to himself and shook his head. Fucking _Archangel_. The chord that couldn’t. At least, not for Kerry.

Johnny had written it in one night on a cocaine binge he’d snorted off some hooker’s stomach at the Atlantis, and penned it all on those little napkins that bars hand out for you to put your whiskey glasses on. He’d bled out something fierce from his nose from all the blow, and so there he was for a manic five hours, tissues stuffed in his nostrils and writing like a madman on those fucking napkins that tore every time he pressed too hard with the pen he’d borrowed from the guy behind the bar counter.

Kerry, similarly wasted, was teetering on excitable edge all night, constantly leaning on Johnny’s shoulder to watch was he was doing. Halfway through, Johnny had pushed Kerry to go grab him a guitar from their van outside and bring it back in, and like the little puppy he was, of course Kerry had obliged, darting off like a Boy Scout eager to earn his badge.

There, in the Atlantis, Johnny had ascended to some kind of devilhood with Archangel, slamming out those dirty chords like oil spilled over a burning engine, slick with tar and ready to catch fire. Nothing else would ever reach that same level of addiction incarnate in the notes of a song, a perfectly disgusting representation of the sex and drugs that Johnny had run through his blood for all those years. If any song could have killed him, it was Archangel. And that night at the Atlantis was probably as close to an overdose as he’d come in a long time.

It wasn’t their best song, but it had the best story of all of them – at least in Johnny’s mind. Kerry was a fucking good player; Johnny couldn’t deny that. But Archangel was Johnny’s song. And nobody could play it but him.

Left hand clutched on the fret board and right aligning itself pick-less over the strings, he recalled the notes to the tune just as maniacally as they had once come to him at that bar – frantic and buzzing like the worm at the bottom of a bottle, all dirty and unpolished and slimy as it slipped down his throat.

It was loud and unabashed in the massive expanse of that empty mansion, calling out to anyone with ears to say that _Johnny Fucking Silverhand_ was in the house. If he had just stood in the middle of the room and screamed at the top of his lungs, it would have accomplished the exact same effect.

V’s fingers weren’t quite as long as his, and this caused the notes to fly out a little too close together, fingers cramped on the neck of the guitar where his would have glided across its surface like the legs of a spider. The abilities of his brain weren’t adapted to the restrictions of her body, it seemed – something he hadn’t had the opportunity to learn yet. Still sounded as good as he remembered, though, regardless. Damn good.

Something stirred nearby, fell over. Dropped. Kind of sounded like a cabinet had been tipped over, a door slammed.

Johnny smirked. Somehow it made him all fucking swelled with pride to think Kerry couldn’t even escape him in death; that he’d always be there to come back and remind him who the better player was of the two of them.

From his right, Kerry came into view, and holy fucking shit he looked different.

All silver where once he’d had black hair, and all gold lining places of his skin which were once organic and fleshy, he was dressed in a dramatic and oh-so Kerry bathrobe, pointing a gun with a somewhat noncommittal arm in Johnny’s – V’s – direction.

“Who the fuck are you?” he said loudly, trying to assert himself over the sound of the song. His voice was dazed though, and Johnny knew he wasn’t sober in the slightest.

Johnny cut the sound and stopped for a moment to gauge Kerry’s reaction, but the other man pointed the weapon more firmly in his general direction and said, “No. Keep playing.”

 _Same fucking Kerry_ , Johnny thought, and smirked to himself as he jumped back into the song, now purposely going as hard and deliberate as he could with the technique as his way of letting Kerry know _exactly_ who the fuck he was.

“Johnny?” Kerry said, voice faltering. “How the hell…”

He stopped playing again and stared at Kerry, willing him to say something else, giving him a characteristic twist of his lips in a way that only Johnny Silverhand would have been able to.

“What are you?” Kerry asked, looking over V’s body from head to toe and landing on her face, searching for some kind of explanation in her – Johnny’s – expressions alone.

“First,” Johnny said, removing the guitar strap from V’s shoulders and hanging the guitar back on the wall. “First,” he said, again. “Put the fucking gun away. Second, yes, it’s complicated. Third, yes. Johnny. Me.”

Kerry stared, open-mouthed and gun lowering, towards V, though said nothing. He looked her up and down again in confusion and took a few steps closer.

“What in…what in God’s name has happened to you?”

Johnny tutted and rolled his eyes, “I said _complicated_.”

Kerry let out a breathless scoff, “Yeah,” he said, looking V over yet again to try to solve this puzzle. “Looks fucking complicated. New, uh…output?”

“Nah,” Johnny said with a wave of his hand, though something he knew very well stirred in him at that word and he did everything in his power to crush it. “This is V.”

“Right,” Kerry said, nodding in what was still confusion, but perhaps an excited one. “And who is V?”

“Well, it’s damn well not me,” Johnny said with a hearty laugh, “that’s for sure.”

Kerry placed the gun down on the sofa at their side below the guitars and said, “Still not makin’ any sense.”

“I’ll give you the abridged version,” Johnny said. “I got whacked, back at Arasaka. Put on a chip. Relic, maybe you’ve heard?”

Kerry’s mouth dropped again, and he said, “You’re the fucking Relic?”

“Well…there’s a lot of ‘em,” Johnny explained. “I’m just one, of many.”

Kerry nodded, and said, “Okay…keep going.”

“And V.” Johnny gestured to himself. “V put me…in her head.”

“Why did she do that?”

Johnny laughed. Good question. “That’s…a different story,” he said. “Point being, here’s V. And, here I am.”

“I…don’t know about all that,” Kerry admitted. “Still not makin’ much sense.”

“What’s not to know?” Johnny said loudly. “I’m on a chip. And I’m chippin’ in.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Kerry said with a laugh, pushing against his shoulder lightly in the exact same way he used to all those years ago. “Be serious,” he said. “What happened to your body?”

“Got no fucking clue. Lost it back in ’23. Been on a chip in Mikoshi all this time, rottin’ away in Japan, I guess. Yorinobu stole it from the vault, brought it here, and it, uh…ended up in V’s possession.”

“She stole it,” Kerry said in disbelief.

“Damn.” Johnny laughed. “Fuck, I mean, yeah. Guess it’s true you can smell a thief a mile away in this city.”

“She just doesn’t look…doesn’t have that brain-dead corpo glint in her eye,” Kerry said, looking V square in the face. “She seems honest. And you know, honesty among thieves.”

“So…” Johnny said, “caught up?”

“If you’d pulled the same bullshit forty years ago, I’d say get the hell outta my house. Now? Fuck. Sure. Why the fuck not? Don’t got any reason _not_ to believe ya.”

“That easy?” Johnny taunted.

“Stranger things have happened,” Kerry said. “And…nobody plays Archangel like that. Nobody else would even know those chords, not like you knew ‘em. Really not much else needs convincin’.”

Flopping onto the couch beside the gun, Kerry deflated into the cushions. “Well,” he said, “how the fuck you been, man? Damn. I don’t even know what to say.”

Johnny held V’s arms outwards and gestured towards himself, clearly indicating for Kerry to give him a hug. “Just say you’re fucking glad to see me!”

Kerry stood again and pushed into Johnny’s arms. A rough hug between two people who were never really sure what they were to one another. Johnny ruffled Kerry’s hair.

“I am!” Kerry said, pulling away and putting his hands on V’s shoulders. “I mean…Jesus, Johnny. It’s been…it’s been, I don’t know _how_ long.”

“Oh,” Johnny scoffed, “like you haven’t kept track of the _exact_ number, Ker.”

“God, that’s so weird,” Kerry said with a goofy smile. “It’s _you_ …but…out of that girl’s voice. So fucking trippy.”

Johnny looked around the room and gave a low whistle. “Seem to have done well for yourself,” he said.

Kerry released V’s body and shrugged sheepishly, saying, “Eh…I do alright.”

He stepped away from the conversation and motioned in the direction of what Johnny could only assume was the kitchen.

“Drink?” Kerry asked, brow raised in question.

“Nah.” Johnny waved his hand. “I don’t think V drinks. Or if she does, I’ve never seen it.”

“Wow, such a kind and caring individual, Johnny.” Kerry laughed lightly and then resumed his probing, excited gaze again. “Fuck, that’s so weird to say. _Johnny_. God, damn.”

“Don’t get too used to it,” Johnny said. “Have to go soon.”

“Go?” Kerry asked. “Go…where?”

“I’m only leasing right now. V owns the house.” He gestured to her body. “Only works for a little while.”

“What does?”

“These pills she’s got that can give me the reigns for a bit. Not magic, though. And I’ll be outta here again pretty soon.”

“What'll happen when you’re gone?”

“V’ll be back in control,” he said. “So, uh, be fucking nice.”

The two of them chattered back and forth for the next few hours, tossing the ball of their friendship around like it had only been just yesterday that Johnny had walked out of the concert venue and gotten in Rogue’s AV to head to Arasaka. Johnny felt a twinge of guilt at not having had to personally live out all those years between. Kerry had been all alone out there since 2023, and it only just occurred to Johnny in that moment that he had left Kerry behind like he was worthless. And suddenly, storming Arasaka paled in comparison to realizing after fifty years that he had fucked over his best friend in the world so severely. He was realizing, through V, that the people in his life who he'd ignored in his own bid for some kind of power, some kind of high, some kind of vengeance - all of them had full lives of their own. He hadn't been the center of the universe. Not like he once thought he was. 

Something felt weightless all of a sudden, fading, falling.

_Oh, fuck._

“And that’s when I…” Kerry trailed off from his story, shooting a concerned look towards the sudden emptiness of V’s expression, a transfer between Johnny and her of blank nothingness. For a brief moment, nobody was captaining the Titanic.

“Johnny?” he asked, reaching a hand out to place on V’s shoulder. “You good?”

She sat very still, reaffirming herself in her own body, like having to regrow a limb.

“What?” she said quietly, looking up at Kerry and jumping slightly in her skin to see where she was at, his hand on her shoulder.

He pulled back and seemed stunned, hands up to show he meant no harm, and looked over her.

“Hello,” he said, and a smile pulled at his shock, unable to help itself. “V?”

“Yes,” she said, and looked around to see that they were now sitting in Kerry’s living room in a circular roundabout of white couches. “Yes, hi. V. Me.”

Kerry laughed and held out his hand, saying, “Well, V. I’m Kerry. It’s nice to meet you.”

She accepted the extension of his hand and placed her own there, with him shaking lightly at first and then more silly-like, wildly, to break the tension. They both laughed and let go.

“Did Johnny behave himself?” V asked, pulling her knees up to hold with her arms.

Kerry made the OK sign with his hand and said, “Perfect gentleman.”

V nodded. “That’s good,” she said.

“You…want something to drink?” he asked, nodding towards the bar nearby.

“Water is fine,” she said.

He nodded with a small smile and stood from the couch, heading over to the bar and taking a glass from the cabinet, setting it on the counter, and then cracking open a bottle of water and pouring it into the glass.

 _Not tap water_ , V thought, and held back a smile by pulling her lips into her mouth and casting her eyes elsewhere. _Rich people._

“I like your…uh…” She searched for the words as she looked around the room. “The house is very…big.”

Kerry laughed heartily and brought back the glass he’d poured, now with ice, and handed it to her. Outside, thunder boomed across the sky and the both of them looked up at the sound. Rain pattered heavily against the roof above.

“So,” Kerry said, taking the seat at her side again. “Can Johnny hear us right now?”

“Yep,” V said. “He can always hear what’s happening.”

“Cool, cool,” Kerry said with a nod, looking away and down to the coffee table in front of them.

V took a sip from the glass, well, multiple sips, somehow impossibly thirsty after Johnny had taken control, like he’d zapped all the moisture out of her body.

She looked to the clock above the fireplace nearby and choked on a mouthful of water. “Oh my god,” she said, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. “Is that the time?”

It was 11:02 PM.

“Yeah,” Kerry said. “Guess it’s gettin’ pretty late.”

V could tell he seemed distracted, suddenly, his tone falling into a kind of humble softness.

“Well, I uh…I should probably get going,” V said, standing from the couch and placing the glass of water on a coaster on the table. “Thank you for letting us stay, and not calling the cops.”

“Pshh,” he said, waving her off with his hand. “Fuck the police.”

“Alright, I guess I’ll be on my way,” she said. “See you…uh…yeah.”

“Wait!” Kerry stood quickly and grabbed hold of her arm, then released it at his own realization of the touch. “You…you _could_ stay a little longer, if you wanted.”

Johnny appeared behind the couch, behind Kerry, and said, _‘Fucking unbelievable. Say no, V.’_

 _‘I don’t want to be rude,’_ she thought back, giving him a glance with her eyes and then returning them to Kerry.

“Uh…okay,” she said awkwardly. “I’m sorry if I’m weird. I mean, we’ve never met.”

“Not true,” Kerry said. “We’ve met now.”

“I guess that’s true,” V offered, again, awkwardly, looking at anything but him for lack of knowing what to say.

“You know,” Kerry said, wagging his finger at her vaguely, “you look kind of…I mean…when I came around the corner, I though one of those Us Cracks girls had broken in. Strictly Asian kid to Asian kid, where’s your family from?”

V almost laughed. Kerry clearly didn’t get out just as much as she didn’t. “My dad is from China. But…I don’t know if people actually say things like that to one another. Kind of an...uh... _interesting_ turn of phrase.”

“Oh, no?” he said, distracted again and looking elsewhere, then back. “Eh, well. Whatever. You still answered.”

“How long has it been since you talked to a regular person?” she asked.

“Saw my gardener this morning.” 

V let out something between a scoff of disbelief and a short laugh, and said, “So...a long time, then.” 

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Kerry said. “Maybe it’s been a while since I’ve been out in the fold. Sue me.”

“And, why would Us Cracks break into your house?” she asked. Kerry grimaced.

“Ooh, those girls boil my blood,” he seethed.

“Should I even ask?”

“No.” He shook his head with clearly unprecedented rage. “I’m havin’ too good a night to think about them. Ask me some other time.”

“What about you?” she asked. “Are you not from here?”

“Family’s from the Philippines. You know how it is. Immigrant parents give up _everything_ and the weight of the family’s legacy rests on the kids…or so it goes. Sounds so fucking noble when you put it like that.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know what you mean.”

A silence fell over them – painfully awkward – and the both of them looked at anything but one another.

“So, you stayin’ over?” he asked.

Johnny, again, appeared beside them.

_‘Say NO, V. Say FUCKING NO.’_

“Okay,” she said, offering a small smile to Kerry at the expense and complete dismissal of Johnny.

Johnny dramatically punched at the back of Kerry’s head, slipping through it in his ghostly way.

 _‘Urgh, V,’_ he said. _‘Take my fucking advice and GO HOME. We’re done here.’_

Kerry grabbed her wrist and pulled her alongside him to the back of the house where his bedroom was, if a bed placed randomly in the middle of a room could even be called that.

Crossing to the wall of closets at the back, he dug around through a few drawers of clothes in clear search of something. V stood by the arched doorway, teetering anxiously from one foot to the other. It had been years since last she’d spent the night at someone’s house like this. Sleeping at Jackie’s didn’t count because he was like family.

“Here,” Kerry said, finally satisfied. “Got some pajamas you could borrow.”

He returned to her side and gave her a humored quirk of a face, and said, “Whatcha doin’ all the way over here?”

“Oh,” she said. “I don’t know. Standing.”

He plopped the pajamas into her hands and patted her on the arm, saying, “Think those’ll fit.”

“Thank you,” she said, and swallowed welling spit in her throat. “Alright, um. Goodnight.”

She turned to walk away from him, and he grabbed the back of her shirt, asking with clear laughter in his voice, “Where ya goin’, V?”

“To the couch…” she said confusedly. “Why?”

“I thought you’d stay here with me.”

_‘NOOOOOOOOOOOO. GOD. NOOOOOOOO.’_

Johnny’s splintering annoyance manifested physically at their side again, pushing V in the opposite direction.

“V,” Kerry said. “You good? You’re all…wobbly.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Probably just tired.”

“Mhm.” Kerry nodded. “Anyway, care to join me?”

She peered to the messy bed behind them and said, “That…seems like a conflict of interest.”

“We’re friends now, right?” Kerry said. “Already established that.”

“I don’t know…” she said. “Are we?”

“Any friend of Johnny’s is a friend of mine.” He pointed his thumb into his chest earnestly.

“Terrible philosophy, really,” V said.

“How about, anybody who steals from Yorinobu Arasaka is a friend of mine?”

“Johnny told you?”

Kerry smirked. “More or less.”

“What…else did he say?”

“Just the basics.” Kerry waved her off. “Didn’t give me much to go on with you.”

V sighed and looked down at the pajamas in her hands, saying, “Alright, okay. I guess I could…stay…up here.”

“Awesome!” Kerry said, excitement clear in his childlike exuberance. "I’ll head out for a sec so you can change. Sound good?”

“Sounds good,” V said, and offered as kind a smile as she could, though she was admittedly not as into this as he was. Being in the presence of another person, especially a stranger, made her nervous.

She changed quickly and Kerry returned, pointing her in the direction of the bathroom and giving her a toothbrush in case she wanted to brush her teeth. Johnny appeared at every angle, corner, and doorway ushering her out of the house, but she ignored him. It wasn’t in her policy to be willfully mean to someone who clearly meant well, and if Johnny was going to be wishy-washy about Kerry, then she was just going to overlook his opinion.

Settling into bed minutes later, Kerry on the left side and V on the right, they maintained a careful distance from one another. The room was dark now, as Kerry had turned out all the lights, and V lay there quietly, staring up at the ceiling. Shadows from the trees outside shook and whirled in dark marks across the room, blowing in the wind. The rain had cleared up, leaving a glimmering brightness outside that could only be possible in the aftermath of a strong storm.

Rolling over onto her right side, V said, “Well. Goodnight.”

“Mhm,” Kerry mumbled. “G’night.”

Being in such a strange location, V knew sleep wouldn’t be happening that night, so there she lay, staring off into the room, nearly suffocated by the silence. It was going to be a long stretch of hours until the sunlight.

She was pulled away from the thought of all that time, though, by a hand on her waist.

Shivering away and turning over quickly, she nearly fell off the bed.

“What are you doing?” she asked, words falling from her lips more like, _“Whatareyoudoing?”_

She stared now at a shocked Kerry who was frozen in place on the bed at her side.

Johnny appeared at the end of the mattress and said, _‘You know damn well what he was doing, V!’_

“I…don’t know,” Kerry said confusedly, backing away. “What are _you_ doing?”

“Well,” she said. “I wasn’t doing anything. And then you were right there behind me. So…I think it was _you_ who was doing something.”

“I invited you to sleep in my bed,” he said, hands up in defense and clearly just as confused as she was. “I thought it was obvious.”

“It wasn’t obvious to me,” she said awkwardly. “You said…friends.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Friends fuck.”

“Woah!” V put her own hands up. “Not _my_ friends.”

Kerry laughed. “Eh, well, maybe you got the wrong friends, then.” He rubbed the back of his neck and shuffled slightly further away. “Sorry. I…sorry. Yeah, it’s my fault. Sorry, I’m…I’m bein’ kinda… _yeah.”_

“I thought you were gay!” she said.

“What?” he exclaimed, smile wide on his face. “Who told you that?”

“Well…Johnny…”

_‘I never said that. I said he wouldn’t like you because you’re a **girl**. I never said he didn’t like women. Semantics, V.’ _

_‘What does that even mean?’_

_‘I already told you,’_ he said. _‘You sexually appeal like a marshmallow. A rubber duck. A child. A girl. A sunflower. Not. Sexy.”_

_‘Sunflower?’_

_‘Or…'_ He shuffled on the spot, arms crossing, and looked away from her. _'Whatever.’_

_‘Hm. I think you were internalizing a little bit.’_

_‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’_

_‘That you liked the attention Kerry gave you. Even if you were just leading him on.’_

_‘Oh, fuck off, V.’_

“V, buddy. You good?” Kerry was giving her a concerned look. “You’ve just been sitting there not saying anything.”

“Yeah, sorry. Johnny in my head.”

“Ah.” He laughed. “Gotcha.”

“So…you’re _not_ gay?”

“No,” he said. “I just like people.”

“Ohh,” V said. “I feel the same way.”

“Really? Hell yeah!”

He held out his hand for a high-five and she couldn’t help but laugh, meeting his waiting palm with her own and then dropping her arm back to her side. She released a tense breath of air that had held in her and rested her hand against her forehead for a moment.

“You still want to sleep?” Kerry asked. “I’m not feeling that tired. You want to order food? I could show you how to play guitar. Oh! We could hit golf balls off the roof into Yorinobu Arasaka’s yard. He’s kinda my neighbor. Sorry…I didn’t ask what you wanted to do. What, uh…what do you feel like doing? We could just go to bed, if you wanted. Not that fun, though.”

“It’s probably too late to order food,” V said. “So…let’s go up on the roof and hit golf balls at Yorinobu’s house, I guess? And…if I can break more windows than you…then…Johnny gets to pick one of your guitars to take home with me.”

“And what if… _I_ win?” Kerry asked.

“Well,” V said, “what do you want?”

“Hmm…” He tapped his chin. “I don’t know. If I win, I’ll think of something.”

V held out her pinky and said, “Alright, deal.”

He met her pinky with his own in a clasp and they nodded at one another, then released.

Kerry shuffled off the bed then and went back to his closet to grab two coats, one which he tossed to V, saying, “Pretty cold at night.”

“Thanks,” she said, slipping her arms into it and zipping up. That coat probably cost more than three months’ rent at her apartment.

“You ready?” Kerry asked, and V nodded.

From a storage closet in the house, Kerry retrieved a golf bag full of clubs and a basket of at least fifty golf balls. He handed the bag off to V and carried the basket himself, purposely taking the heavier item.

As they headed up the stairs to the roof, V asked, “Does Yorinobu ever actually go there? To his house?”

“Not really,” Kerry said. “Only if there’s some kinda ‘Saka event happening. He’s been around lately, after everything that went down.”

"How often does he come by?” she asked.

“Eh…every few days.” He pushed the door open to the roof and then stepped through. “Somethin’ like that.”

Once up there, they settled into his sitting area which had a clear view of the Arasaka mansion which lay down a winding road a hill or so’s altitude lower than Kerry’s.

All the windows were dark and the house looked as good as dead.

V stared at it from the edge of the roof, still holding onto the bag of clubs. “Ever been inside?” she asked.

“Once,” Kerry said, crossing to her and taking a club from the bag in her arms. “Party. A few years ago.”

V turned to him as he walked to a small square of Astroturf nearby and placed a golf ball down.

“What was he like?” she asked curiously.

“Yorinobu?” Kerry asked, and V nodded. He looked back out to the house and squinted at it, searching for the best shot spot and aligning the club with the ball. “Kind of a weird dude, honestly. Uptight. Strange.”

V set the bag beside the outdoor lounge-chairs and took a seat in one of them. “Strange how?” she asked.

“Seemed distracted. Like he didn’t really want to be there.” Kerry hit the ball as hard as he could and it shot off into Yorinobu’s yard, landing on the upper-level of the house. “I dunno. Not really the Steel Dragon Rockerboy of the '20s anymore.”

“What about… _Saburo_?” V asked, testing the late old man’s name out as if invoking a forbidden word. “Ever met him?”

Kerry grabbed another ball from the basket and tossed in in the air, catching it again. “Don’t think anybody ever met the ol’ geezer,” he said with a roll of his eyes.

“Really?” V asked, pulling her legs up to sit crisscrossed.

“Not much of a people-person,” he said, placing the ball onto the grass square. “Not one for public appearances. Yorinobu and Hanako are the beautiful young faces that smile bright on TV – Saburo stands in the shadows and nods thoughtfully. Yada, yada, yada…you know how it is.” He stared at the empty mansion across the way for a moment of pause, then added, “Oh, and the granddaughter. Whatever her name was. I don’t remember. Michiko? Somethin’ like that. Just a bunch a’ rich bitches to me, all of ‘em.”

“Don’t you think they’re a little…” V searched for the correct word in her mind’s eye. “Suspicious?”

Kerry chuckled and hit the ball off again, this time landing in the front yard. “Suspicious?” he repeated. “Yeah…that’s one way to say it. I’ll put it this way. I wouldn’t be surprised if we found out they were bathing in the blood of aborted Japanese babies in the basement. And I won’t say nothin’ else.”

“What?” V asked, reaching into the basket and tossing him another ball, which he caught. “Don’t wanna talk about them?”

“Oh, I _definitely_ wanna talk about them.” He scoffed. “What I don’t want is to say somethin’ that gets me popped off like Princess Diana.” He made a brief cutting motion towards his neck and clicked his tongue. “Fuckers can probably hear us right now. Better not push our luck.”

“Princess Diana?” V asked. “Who’s that?”

“Nobody,” he said, placing the ball on the ground and aiming the club at it. “Happened before your time. Long before your time.”

He hit the ball again, and this time it bounced off the house and bounded down the hills towards Night City.

“Fuck, I suck,” he said.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little…hypocritical?” V asked carefully.

Kerry turned to her and gave a scrutinizing squint. "What?” he probed.

“I mean…you _do_ live in the same neighborhood as him.”

“V, I’m just one dude.” He sighed. “Okay, I do alright. But do I have a systematic family which swallows up twenty-percent of the world’s wealth alone and could single-handedly wipe out half the planet if they decided they wanted to nuke us one day? No. So…yeah, I live in Yorinobu’s neighborhood. What of it?”

“Nothin’,” V said. “Just curious.”

“Mhm, I know that look.” He wagged his finger at her. “I know you’re judging me.”

“I wasn’t trying to start anything, Kerry. Sorry.”

“No, say what’s on your mind, V. I want to hear it. I want to hear how you think I’m a sell-out. Think I’m a fuckin’ hypocrite living in the ass-end of Night City’s Hollywood knock-off. Yeah, it’s fucking tacky here. But it’s all I got.”

“I don’t know what to say. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Kerry sighed and sat in a chair next to her, sliding his hands down the golf club and leaning his forehead against it. He blew out a willful rush of air from his lungs.

“I’m sorry too,” he said. “Shouldn’t a’…blown up on ya…like that. Wasn’t right. Just…guess I’m…I’m talkin’ to the Johnny part of ya, you know? Feel like I have to convince him I didn’t sell out. That I didn’t…become what we used to fight against.”

Johnny appeared at the edge of the roof, sitting there with his feet hanging over the edge and staring out at Yorinobu’s home in the distance, blanketed by the mysterious moonlight.

 _'Not my cup of tea…but…Kerry needs this place,’_ he said. _‘Take my word for it. Kerry was always a fighter, but Night City’s a shithole. Feels kinda better knowin’ he’s out here and not dead in some gutter somewhere. That self-portrait downstairs is too fucking much, though.’_

“Johnny says…he doesn’t think less of you,” V relayed. “Said he feels better knowing you’ve got a place of your own, even if it’s not somewhere he could see himself living.”

Kerry chuckled to himself. “Well, alright, then. Guess it isn’t so bad. Been alone for a long time, so I…” He exhaled through his nose. “Been a while since I’ve really talked to anyone. Stuck in my own head a lot, y’know?”

From the pocket of the pajamas she’d borrowed, her phone chimed, and she reached to take it out.

______

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _You have been safe today?_ [11: 58 PM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Very safe. No worries._ [11:59 PM]

 _And you? How was your day?_ [11:59 PM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _I completed what I needed to complete today._ [12:00 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Vague as always, Goro. Can’t give me any details at all? Pretty please?_ [12:00 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Business as usual. Nothing to worry about._ [12:01 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Feel good to be back to work?_ [12:01 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Very good. It is a comfort to have a task that needs doing._ [12:02 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _I’m glad to hear you’re feeling better._ [12:02 AM]

 _You know…not being hunted across the city. At least, not as much._ [12:03 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Yes. It is a delight to not be wanted dead._ [12:04 AM]

 _As much._ [12:04 AM]

______

Thumbs tapping across the screen, V lettered out her next text, but a shadow suddenly cascaded in front of her, and she looked up.

Kerry was giving her a questioning look, and held out the golf club towards her. “Your turn,” he said, still eyeing her curiously.

“Ah,” V said, placing her phone face-down on the table beside her seat and standing. She took the club into her hands. “Thanks.”

Flopping down into the seat she’d risen from, Kerry pulled his knees to his chest and held his arms loosely around them. “Who you textin’ at midnight?” he asked with a teasing lilt.

V’s cheeks warmed and she was thankful for the darkness. “Nobody,” she said, but felt like this was dismissive of who Takemura was. “Well, _somebody_. But…nobody.”

“Secret?” Kerry taunted. “Okay, okay. Don’t tell me.”

“I won’t.”

“You sure?”

“Mhm.”

V’s phone buzzed on the table, creating a rectangle of screen lighting to appear in the dark.

Kerry’s gaze shot to it just as V’s did, and neither of them moved. He looked to her.

“Want me to get that?” he asked.

“No,” she said, moving towards the phone and reaching her hand out. “I got it.”

“Mm…I think I’m gonna get it,” Kerry taunted, and grabbed the phone quickly from where it lay, standing and holding it far out of her reach.

“Kerry,” she said, looking up at his outstretched arm. “C’mon.”

“Reach for it.”

_“Kerry.”_

He darted away from her across the roof and towards the door back into the house.

“Looks like you’re gonna have to catch me if you want it,” he said.

She began to walk slowly in his direction and he maintained a defensive stance in case she came in for the attack.

“I’m not a good runner,” she said.

“Well, that sucks for you because I happen to be an _incredible_ runner.”

“Aren’t you a smoker?”

“Hey.” He feigned offense. “Former smoker, thank you very much. Gave me this incredible voice _and_ it didn’t kill me. Think that’s a win for the history books.”

He turned and jogged into the house and she bounded after him, chasing him down the stairs and nearly slipping on the smooth floor in her socks as she rounded a corner, sliding somewhat as they came back into his bedroom.

“What?” he said. “Can’t catch me?”

“I’m just getting started,” she said.

Kerry smiled, clearly glad that his game was working, and took off down the hallway and to the stairs, taking them two at a time downwards and plopping at the bottom on both feet.

He turned and looked up to where she stood at the top and asked, “You’re not actually upset, are you? If you are, I’ll give it back. I was just…joking around.”

“Oh, no.” She laughed as she approached him, then standing at his side. “I’m totally fine. I knew you were kidding.”

“Uh, here.”

He held out the phone and she gave him a concerned look. She didn’t know why he’d relented so quickly.

“You okay?” she asked, taking the phone into her hands and looking at it briefly before dropping her hand to her side.

He huffed a breath out and made a smile appear on his face, standing taller. “Yeah!” he said. “I’m great.”

“You sure?”

“Just haven’t…spent time with somebody…in a long time.”

“Me neither,” she said with a noncommittal shrug. No reason to go spilling all the intimate details of her personal life to a virtual stranger. “Not…really.”

“What about Johnny?”

She considered this, but quickly fell back with an uncomplicated reply of, “I mean, he’s always there, but…he’s not really _there_. Not for real.”

“What about the person you were texting?”

“It’s complicated.”

He laughed. “Yeah. Complicated. I hear that.”

Kerry turned around and walked into his music corner, flopping down onto the couches which lined the wall.

“So. Wanna play some guitar?”

“Yes,” V said, following him to where he sat. “Definitely.”

While Kerry set up, V quickly checked her phone.

______

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _I would like to see you again soon._ [12:12 AM]

 _If you would like to see me…_ [12:13 AM]

 _Forgive me if I am disturbing you._ [12:20 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

_You’re not disturbing me at all!_ [12:30 AM]

 _Yes!_ [12:30 AM]

 _I would like to see you again, too!_ [12:31 AM]

 _Did you have a specific time in mind? Specific day?_ [12:31 AM]

______

“So,” Kerry said. “Which one?”

“Hmm…I honestly don’t know anything about guitars.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “Just pick which one you like the look of best.”

She looked along the wall of instruments and settled her eyes on a basic acoustic one, saying, “That one’s kinda cute.”

“Cool, cool. Lemme tune it up.”

______

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _I do not have an assured time to be free. I can let you know as soon as I am able. I only wanted to let you know I was thinking of you. People do this, yes?_ [12:33 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Of course! I was thinking about you too._ [12:33 AM]

 _Not in a bad way!_ [12:33 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Not in a bad way? You would not say that it was bad, even a little?_ [12:34 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Oh, all funny now, aren’t you?_ [12:34 AM]

 _You seem especially chipper tonight. Something up?_ [12:35 AM]

______

“You ready, V?”

She looked up from her phone to see Kerry giving her a small smile, and she set it off to the side, facing downwards to keep the distraction away.

“Yeah!” she said.

Kerry placed the guitar in her hands, and said, “Right-handed?” and she nodded.

He positioned her fingers where they were meant to go, nodding and offering quips of _Yep_ and _Perfect_ as he aligned her.

“Johnny never taught you anything?” he asked.

“A little,” she admitted, thinking to the one time he had tried weeks prior. “Doesn’t come up much.”

“Well, I can teach you,” Kerry said with chipper earnestness.

_‘V, don’t fall for it. He’s just tryin’ to get on your good side.’_

Ignoring the Jiminy Cricket – no – the Johnny Cricket, in her head, she said, “I think that sounds great. Thank you.”

Kerry beamed, and said, “No problem!”

He settled closer to her and reached out again, then said, “Okay, I…hey! I only just noticed your arm. Way cool. Where’d you get it done? And your leg! They kinda match!”

V swallowed harshly. “I…I lost them. In…in different…accidents.”

“Oh…” He cleared his throat. “Sorry. So used to people choosing their chrome, I, uh…sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “Most people pick their upgrades. It’s normal. I understand why you’d think so. Don’t worry about it.”

“Looks totally badass, though, V. All _Mad Max_ and shit. Preem.”

She laughed. “Thanks. Guess I don’t usually think about it like that. Feels pretty…weak, usually.”

“Weak?” He scoffed humoredly. “Think you could definitely take me in an arm-wrestling match.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“Do you want it to be?”

“Well, we didn’t finish our Arasaka golfing, so…new bet. If I win, I get a guitar for Johnny. If you win…”

“Hang out with me tomorrow,” he said quickly, and it gave her pause at the forwardness.

“That’s what you want?” she asked.

“We can have breakfast,” he said. “And then…and then, I don’t know. Whatever you want. Just…hang out with me.”

“Okay. I can do that.”

Her phone chimed and buzzed where it was being suffocated screen-down, and Kerry’s eyes shot towards it.

“You want to get that?” he asked.

“Oh,” V said, “I shouldn’t take a text in the middle of our conversation.”

“It’s okay,” he encouraged, leaning his head back against the wall where they sat and closing his eyes in likely distant sleepiness. “Go ahead.”

______

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _It is good to be returning to life as normal. This is a thing to feel “chipper” for, yes?_ [12:40 AM]

 _I also feel happy about knowing you._ [12:41 AM]

 _I feel strongly confident that you will live and that we can soon become acquainted under less fatal circumstances._ [12:41 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Well, I hope you know I'm just as happy that we met, Goro. Even if it doesn’t work out with Arasaka, I’m grateful you tried._ [12:42 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _It will work._ [12:42 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _That confident?_ [12: 42 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _That confident._ [12:42 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _When you say it, I almost want to believe it._ [12:43 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Have belief in your allies, V. And yourself._ _We will find a way._ [12:43 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _I hope so._ [12:43 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _I know so._ [12:43 AM]

 _In any case, you should rest. It is late._ [12:44 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _You say that like you’re not up texting me_ 😊 [12:44 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _This is true. Okay. I will stop._ [12:44 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _No! Don’t stop on my account._ [12:44 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _I am serious, V. Your health is of the upmost concern to us_. [12:45 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Okay, okay. See you soon?_ [12:45 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Soon, yes. I will contact you._ [12:45 AM}

 _Sleep well, V._ [12:45 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Goodnight!!_ 🥰 [12:45 AM]

 _Sorry for the heart smiley if that was weird. I’ll take it back if you don’t want it. Forget it ever happened._ [12:46 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _No, don’t take it back. I will keep it as a reminder._ [12:46 AM]

 _But, in seriousness, you should sleep. For your health._ [12:46 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Okay, okay. But you should sleep, too._ [12:47 AM]

 _Goodnight!_ _Sleep tight! Don’t let the bed-bugs bite!_ [12:47 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _You jest, but this is a serious concern in Night City._ [12:47 AM]

 _Goodnight, V._ [12:48 AM]

______

“All done?” Kerry asked, and V could hear the hopeful lilt to his voice, though she tried to think nothing of it. His clear overexcitement at the prospect of having someone to hang out with was spilling off of him in the kind of frothy smoke spills which dry ice gave off in hot water.

“All done,” she said, willfully cheerful in her tone to convey a matching sense of happiness at being there, though she knew whatever this was – it was far more important to Kerry. “Phone is off for the night.”

“Alright,” he said. “Arm wrestle time.”

Placing the guitar off to the side, Kerry ushered her over to the dining room table at the opposite end of the room and the two of them sat down, facing one another, over the edge of the table.

He held his arm out, elbow to the wood, and she did the same, using her prosthetic, at Kerry’s urging.

They clasped palms together and within seconds, he had her arm flush against the surface of the table.

“You acted like you were so weak!” V said. “I barely had a chance!”

“Okay, okay.” Kerry laughed. “I _may_ have withheld the information about my reinforced joints. Apologies.”

“Apology...apprehensively accepted.”

Kerry smiled and then looked down, tapping his fingertips against the wood of the table.

“So, tomorrow?” he asked unsurely. 

“So, tomorrow…” V repeated.

“Let’s go to the zoo,” he said, looking up at her. “I haven’t been there in so long.”

“Alright,” she agreed. “Zoo it is.”

“Well, if we’re gonna be so busy in the morning, think I need some shut-eye.” He pushed up from the table and slid his chair back into place. “You comin’, or you wanna stay and play some more?”

“I think I’ll sleep now too,” she said, standing and mimicking his action.

“Sorry my lesson wasn’t much of a lesson,” he said, beginning to walk towards the stairs. “I can really show you more later. I meant it when I said I would teach you.”

Stopping on the stairs’ steps ahead of V, Kerry stood very still, facing away from her behind him. Looking up the incline of the stairs, V waited for him to speak his thoughts, which he seemed clearly to be mulling over in his mind.

“I feel like I’ve known you forever,” he said.

V swallowed harshly.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh…I…oh.”

He turned around quickly, giving her a slightly surprised face, brow raised and mouth agape just so.

“Whew, V,” he said, releasing a taut chuckle. “Leave me hangin’, why don’t cha?”

V shook it off, reasserting her presence in the statement Kerry had just tossed on her like an ice block to the head, saying, “It’s just the Johnny in me.”

“Maybe,” he said, and then laughed and brushed it off. “Eh, probably. You’re not much like Johnny, though.”

“No?” V asked.

“Nah.” Kerry waved her off. “Johnny’s a piece a’ shit.”

At the top of the stairs, the man himself appeared in a fume, pacing back and forth annoyedly. V cast her eyes towards him, and Kerry gave her a confused look.

 _‘Excuse me!?’_ Johnny scoffed, shaking his head with a bitter smile. _‘That’s fucking rich. Tell him to go fuck himself, V.’_

Still looking up to the manic rocker boy, V said, “Johnny wasn’t too happy about that one.”

Kerry turned around in what V could only call hope and stared up at where Johnny would have been standing if it were possible for the former man to see him. If for no one else, V wished more now than ever to be able to will the ghost in her head into existence – for Kerry.

Being in the company of the one person who probably needed Robert John Linder to reappear back in his life more than anybody, V realized just how little she truly understood Johnny. It was his former best friend – Kerry – colliding with, if V assumed the possibility, his new one – _her_. Old life versus new life, smashing head-to-head in a stronger clash of the titans than any prior event had.

Looking back to her after a hesitant pause on the empty space where Johnny could have been, Kerry donned a goofy smile and brushed it off. But if V knew anything, this was certainly not a moment worth shrugging away, especially not for Kerry – and she’d known him for less than a day.

“Eh, well,” he said, glancing at his feet and then back to her again. “He owes me about…fifty years of taking the piss out of him. Makin’ me think he’d been dead all this time. Tell him he should’ve gotten into somebody’s head sooner.”

 _‘Well,’_ Johnny said, tone rising and falling, peaking at its loudest in the middle of the word, _‘you tell Kerry if he missed me so bad, he should’ve come and gotten me his damn self.’_

“Johnny says he loves you very much.”

Kerry laughed loudly, the kind of volume only a man who liked to be heard when he spoke could manage, or one who was unaware of just how large his presence in any given room was.

“He did not fuckin’ say that,” Kerry bellowed, voice crackled and deep from what had surely been hundreds of smoked tobacco sticks weaving through his lungs over the years. “But I appreciate the thought.”

The lights of a thousand-crystal chandelier hanging above flickered momentarily from the storm returning again, and the two of them flicked their heads vertically up to catch sight of it. This moment of reality in an otherwise impossibly bizarre evening seemed to ground the conversation back from the abstract. Kerry cleared his throat.

“Alright, c’mon,” he said, looking back to V where she stood a few paces from him at the bottom of the stairs. “Let’s get some sleep. Don’t need to argue about it when I’m…I’m just so fucking glad you brought him here. God, damn. Best day of my life. Fuck! So damn awesome. I’m glad you’re here. I’m _so_ glad you’re here.”

Within her chest, V’s heart hummed, though just as quickly caught itself in its song of warmth and snuffed the flame out. “Me?” V asked for clarification. “Or…Johnny?”

“God,” Kerry said, floating in some kind of dazzled emotional altitude which struck V in its apparent gleefulness. _Happy_. At the knowledge of Johnny’s presence. That would be a first for her in all the people she had met in her time with the Relic. “I don’t know,” he continued, hand landing on the banister of the stairs. “You, him, both of you. I’m just…wow. Preem. Fucking preem. Damn.”

_That night, at the comfortable distance of Kerry's presence at her side, V slept a calm, dreamless rest._


	14. I'm Searching For A Light To Take Me Home

C H A P T E R F O U R T E E N

_I'm Searching For A Light To Take Me Home_

In a strange location, V awoke.

Strange of scent and strange of feel, she came to life the following morning beneath the messy, sugar white sheets of Kerry's bed, alone. The room twirled with the smell of daisies, and at her bedside, she rolled over to notice a flickering yellow candle lit beside a lamp, her phone, and a glass of water, which had not been there at the time she'd gone to sleep - all sitting upon the end table.

Outside, the blistering storm of the night prior had given way to a brightly lemon sunrise which shone through Kerry’s full, wall-length windows and cast light upon the pale wooden panels of the floor by the bed.

Around the room, a scattering of clothing. Tattered jeans, leather jackets, tanned button-ups, cream white sweaters. The worn refuse which detailed Kerry Eurodyne’s personal life. How much would these items tell V about the life he had lived up to the moment she had arrived the evening before? These minute pieces of cloth tossed carelessly to the floor spoke novels of information about the man who would be a psychologist’s daydream.

“Kerry?” V called out, the sound echoing in the wide and hollow spread of the tall room. Rubbing her eyes and smoothing her hair, she repeated the name, “Kerry? You there?”

Somewhere behind her right eye, a focused point of pain swelled like someone was playing around in her brain with a drill. Her hands rose to her temples and pressed in, looking to stem the rush of distress beneath her skull.

_“You alright, V?”_

Johnny appeared on the bed, sitting in front of her, right leg bent on the blankets and left leg hanging over the edge.

Impulsively, he reached out to her, but quickly subdued himself and lowered his hand back to his lap. She could feel the suggestion of hesitation emanating from within him.

“Headache,” she said, near soundlessly. “Think I’m…think I’m a little dizzy from yesterday. From you taking over.”

Johnny placed the tips of his left-hand fingers close enough to touch V's leg, but barely enough to be noticeable, and asked, “You want to take some of Vik’s pills? You brought a few, right?”

V shook her head, and said, “I don’t wanna do that to you. We’re in this together now.”

Johnny's face softened, and he told her, firm but clear, “If you’re in pain…V, I…fuck, you gonna make me spell it out?”

“I’m okay," she said with a brush-off of her hand, attempting to sit up straighter to convey this okay-ness. "Really. No worries.”

He sat still for a moment, focused on the look of her face as she tried to will away the feeling of ache in her head.

“V, I care…about…about _you_ , y’know…” He sighed. “If you’re feeling sick, I can take a break. It’s cool.”

“Don’t wanna push you away, Johnny.”

“You’re pushin’ me away actin’ like you’re fine – and I know you’re not.”

"Really, Johnny," V said, trailing him with her eyes as he stood from the bed and crossed to the pile of clothes which she had worn the day prior. "I don't need them."

Digging around in the contents of her backpack, he pulled an orange pill-bottle from within and returned to her side, holding it out and giving it a shake.

"C'mon," he said. "Just take them."

Taking the container into her hands, she brushed over the label with her thumb and then pressed into the lid and twisted it off. 

"Are you sure you're sure?" she asked, pausing before pulling it open. 

"V, I won't say it again."

"Alright, alright," she said, popping off the cap and dumping two pills into the palm of her hand. "Need some water."

"Got water right there," Johnny said, pointing towards the glass on the bedside table which she had noticed before, but forgotten already.

“Oh, yeah," she said, reaching out for it and taking it into her hand. It was chilled, ice not yet melted. Probably recent. "Kerry must’ve put it there. That was nice of him.”

Johnny scoffed and she gave him a questioning look.

“Yeah, _nice,"_ he said sarcastically. "That’s one way to say it.”

“Concerns from the peanut gallery?” V asked, egging him on in his ruminations. 

“Nope,” he said, laying back on the bed and stretching his feet out to her left side, throwing his hands behind his head. “Won’t say nothin’.”

Staring at the pills in her hand, she asked again, “You _sure_ this is okay, Johnny?”

He stared up at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling rhythmically, and said, “You took Misty’s pills for me. Think it’s only fair.”

“Don’t want to make it worse for us," she said quietly, concernedly.

His eyes flicked to her, head lifting slightly. “What do you mean, V?” he asked.

“I mean…what if every time I use the pills, our connection gets a little weaker? We don’t know what’s really happening on the inside. I don’t want to cause irreparable damage.”

He lay his head back down as it was before, and said, “V, if I’m hurting you, I don’t want to be. That’s all that matters.”

“Why are you so nice now?" she asked. "What gives?”

“Can’t be nice to ya? Damn, V.”

She shook her head, and answered, “No, I mean...I mean I don’t want you to go easy on me just because you think I’m…breakable." She looked down at the glass in her hand. "You started treatin’ me different. Once you knew.”

“Why?" Johnny asked, somewhat harshly. An obvious defense. "Want me slap you around or somethin’?”

“No," she said. "I just...I don’t want you to feel like you have to be someone you’re not just to keep from hurting my feelings.”

“V, you always say yourself you don’t really know me. So, how’s it you can say who I am or who I’m not, huh? Maybe I’m nicer than you thought; ever gave that possibility a try?”

“I’m sorry," she said. "I wasn’t trying to say that I don’t think you’re a good person. I was trying to say I miss you teasing me. Being open. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t say what you really think or make a joke, or…or whatever.”

"Just take the pills, V," he said, still avoiding looking directly at her and distracting himself with the twirling of the ceiling fan above. 

She gave him a last moment of regard and slipped the pills into her mouth, chasing them with a large mouthful of water from the glass.

"See you later?" she asked hopefully, and Johnny nodded. 

"Yeah," he said. "Later."

Pushing the blankets off of her lap, she turned to place her feet upon the floor to find that it was quite cold, likely from the air conditioning running in the room which she suddenly became aware of. She set the water back on the bedside table and stood up, taking a last look to the side to find that Johnny had faded out. The tick of him in her mind wasn't gone entirely, yet, but he had willingly drifted physically at her go-ahead.

“Kerry?” she called out, heading out into the wider house. She emerged from the bedroom and stepped forward to the balcony beside the staircase. “You around?”

“Yeah!” he called out, catching V’s eyes as he appeared from the downstairs living room and looked up at her. “Just up doin’ things, is all! Needed to get out and move around a little.” He chuckled. “It’s funny. I never sleep in. Really needed it. Was nice to have somebody there again. How about you?"

"Pretty good," she said, though decided against sharing the headache she'd retained from letting Johnny take the reigns the night before.

“Oh," Kerry said, tossing his thumb in the general direction of the front door, "I brought your bike around the house into the driveway. Saw it out on the curb. Tucked it up under the awning.”

“Oh, thank you,” V said. "Totally forgot about it."

“You should really look into getting something faster. Pretty standard model you got.”

“It was a…a gift,” she said, “from a friend.”

Kerry nodded, gave a kind, “I can respect that," and stepped towards the staircase. He placed his hand upon the railing and made his way to the upper floor. “So, still up for the zoo?”

“Yeah!" V said, watching him as he approached her side. "Of course. Could we…stop by my place, though? On the way? Need to change.”

Kerry waved her off, and said, “Oh, I got lotsa clothes here you can borrow. People leave stuff behind all the damn time. Back of my room, door on the left. Take whatever you want.”

“Oh," she said, turning to look back into the room she'd just left. "Okay.”

Stepping to where she'd walked out from, she headed to the door Kerry indicated and asked, "This one?" while pointing at it.

"Yep," he said, a pop to the pronunciation of the _p_ as he followed behind her and then flopped onto the bed, laying on his back. 

Pushing the door to the side - a sliding door which disappeared into the wall - she was met with a good ten-by-ten foot wide room, rounded on all sides with beams holding clothes upon clothes. She would have thought to be surprised at the sheer expanse of it if she hadn't had an entire room in her own home dedicated solely to the storage of weapons. Tit-for-tat, she decided. 

Cautiously stepping in, she turned her head back to where Kerry lay, and asked, "You sure I can just...choose anything?"

"Anything at all," he said, holding up the necklace he was wearing to his face and twisting it absentmindedly. 

V wasn't sure where to begin, given far too many options. She trailed her fingers along the rows of clothes which covered a complete range of colors and styles and tried to find something that seemed like _her_.

“Wait!” Kerry said suddenly, popping up from the bed and soft jogging to her side. “I have an idea. Hold on.”

Flipping wildly yet with clear intention through the racks, Kerry whipped out a number of different pieces, a mixture of dark fabrics and jean cloths, collecting a manic pile in his arms.

"Here," he said, presenting the items out to V at his side. "Put these on."

"Should I be worried?" she asked, taking them into her own arms.

"No way," he said, reaching up to a shelf near the ceiling and pulling down a near-perfect pair of black canvas sneakers, which he sat on the top of the clothes in V's arms.

"These too?" she asked, brow raised curiously. 

"Those too," he said, and then moved to exit the room. "Let me know when you're dressed."

As he walked out, he closed the door behind him and V heard the sound of his footsteps retreating, likely back to the bed, to which there was the distinct flop of his body back onto the mattress.

Setting the clothes onto a small plush stool in the middle of the room, V picked up one of the pieces and turned it around to find that it was an old, white Samurai tank-top, to which she immediately rolled her eyes yet couldn't help but smile. Kerry, for all the ways he was different from Johnny, could be just as much an egomaniac about the band as his martyr best friend was. 

Removing the borrowed pajamas Kerry had lent her and folding them together, she placed them off to the side and set to arrange the new outfit on herself.

She slipped the shirt over her head and reached for the pair of ripped, dark-wash jeans he had chosen. A bit too tight to the legs for her taste, but she wouldn't complain. Clothes were clothes, after all. Before she put them on, though, she noticed a pair of black fish-nets sitting beneath them. 

"Should I put the pantyhose on before the jeans?" she asked, holding them up and looking at them.

"Well they don't go _over_ the pants," he called back sarcastically.

"Alright," she said, mostly to herself, and slid them onto her legs, then pulled the jeans over them, to which the nets were visible through the rips in the jean. 

The last item was a cropped leather jacket which she picked up and slipped over her arms, pulling down on it to make sure it was snug and secure. 

She sat on the stool and put on the pair of ankle-length socks Kerry had left for her and then finished with the sneakers, which she was near sure nobody had ever worn. How nice it must have been to have a pair of shoes never once used. Every pair of her own shoes might as well disintegrate off her body when she was through with them. 

"Alright," she said, sitting up and walking to the mirror in the back of the room. "I'm dressed."

The bed outside creaked as Kerry stood and the door slid open behind her. Kerry appeared in the mirror, but she remained facing away from him.

“Hell yeah, V!" he said, stepping to her side and clapping his left arm loosely over her shoulder. "Preem as hell!”

“I don’t know, Kerry,” she said, turning in the mirror to get a look at the back of the jacket. “Not really my style.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked, taking a step back and crossing his arms. “Then what is?”

Walking back to the rows of clothes, she flipped through a few options and then pulled a long jean item from the rack, saying, “Maybe…maybe something more like…this?”

“Overalls, V?" Kerry asked, looking over them. "Really? What are you, a nomad?”

She replaced them back where she'd grabbed them from, and then said, somewhat hesitantly, “Actually, yeah. I-I was. Little while ago.”

“Oh, damn." He rubbed the back of his neck and gave her a sheepish look. "Um…yeah…I mean…I had my nomad phase too.”

“Really?”

“Well. Nomad BDs. Y’know. Life on the road…from the comfort of my living room.”

V laughed lightly and turned back to the mirror, placing her hands on her waist, then saying, “So…this my Johnny Silverhand Halloween costume?”

Kerry put his arm back around her shoulder. “Ready for the mosh pit, definitely," he said. 

He tensed at her side and pulled away again, looking at her reflection instead of directly at her.

“Actually, you look like…” he said excitedly, and then just as quickly, caught himself on a snag and paused, quieting to an immediate awkward silence. “Uh… _never mind.”_

“What?” she asked, turning towards him. “Who?”

“Nobody,” he said, waving her off dismissively. “Forget I said anything.”

“Alt?” 

In the near silence of the room, she could hear him swallow harshly.

“Oh," he said, backing up slightly. "You, uh…you know about her?”

“A little," she admitted. "Not much, though. That was what you were gonna say, though, wasn’t it? Looks like something Alt would wear.”

“Yeah, I…I was. Does that…bother you?”

“No,” she said honestly. “I don’t think so. Glad Johnny’s not listening right now, though.”

"He's not?" Kerry asked. "Good."

"Good?"

"Don't think he needs to...know about this."

V nodded, but pressed for no further details, the likes of which spoke for themselves. Johnny's ever bleeding wound was Alt. Enough said.

“Any particular reason I need to dress like this?” V asked, forcing a more upbeat tone to shift the tense tide the conversation had taken.

“Looks dope, that’s why," Kerry said, similarly returning to his goofy self, as before. 

She looked into the mirror again, and asked, “That’s all?”

“ _And_ if we get spotted in public, you look the part.”

“The part of what?" she asked, looking down at the sleeves of her jacket. "Samurai groupie trying _way_ too hard?”

“Nah," Kerry said, but then added, after a moment of consideration, "Well…kinda.”

"Hmph," V said. "Comforting."

Stepping up behind her, Kerry placed his hands on her shoulders, and said, “If anybody sees us, you’re my new input. And now you look like it.”

“Input?" she asked curiously, looking up at him in their reflection. "Don’t you mean output?”

He rolled his eyes. “Back in _my_ day," he said, "it was the other way ‘round. The way it’s _supposed_ to be. Input accepts output. If you had a cord, and you plugged it into a socket, the cord is the output, the piece that’s being _put out_ , literally. And the part that goes in, that takes the piece that’s out, you know what I mean – that’s input. Somewhere along the way, though, got changed."

“I never liked those terms anyway,” she said. “Feels degrading.”

“Eh, well…yeah." He released her from his grip and stuck his hands in his pockets. "Me neither. But there you go. Free, uh…history lesson. Or would it be science? Whatever.”

“School of hard knocks," she said, "more like it.”

Adjusting his stance at her side, Kerry asked suddenly, “Hey, V…hold on for a sec?”

“Oh? Okay," she said. "Holding."

“Just, um…close your eyes.”

"Should I be worried?" she asked.

"No."

"Okay, then. Closing them."

Eyes shut, she heard Kerry step away from her and slide a drawer open elsewhere in the room, to which he shuffled through metallic pieces of material which clanked together as his hand surely must've dug through them.

The drawer slid closed and his footsteps returned to her side across the wooden floor and he stepped directly in front of her, close enough that she could feel his breath upon her face.

Something was placed over her head and upon her shoulders, which Kerry adjusted to sit on her neck, causing goosebumps at the tickle of the chain on her skin.

"Okay," he said, stepping back, "there you go."

"Eyes open now?" she asked.

"Eyes open."

Blinking back to the room, Kerry stood patiently in front of her, clearly awaiting some kind of response. 

Looking down, a silver necklace was wrapped around her now, ending at mid-chest in a resin-encased guitar pick. 

"We played the Viper Room, back in the day, and Johnny Boy..." Kerry pointed at the necklace. "He swallowed _that_ pick, on a dare."

"Oh course he did," V said with a laugh, looking over the piece in her hand. "A dare from you?"

"Dare from his fucking self. Idiot was the epitome of _'dare me to do it?'"_

"Why'd you save it?" she asked.

"Because that night, he had to get his stomach pumped after he took ecstasy laced with bad molly. Died for two minutes on the operating table. But, damn bastard wasn't ready to go yet. So I saved the pick as a souvenir. Didn't get it cased in resin until... _after_ , everything. Y'know."

From the end table at Kerry's bedside, a phone buzzed against the wood, and both of them turned their heads at the sound. 

"Not mine," he told her. "Got it in my pocket."

"Mine, then," she said, and walked out into the bedroom once again to take her phone from where it lay.

______

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Good morning, Valérie. Would it be possible to meet today?_ [10:23 AM]

______

"Something good?" Kerry called from where he still stood in the closet, then stepped into the doorway to look at her.

"Just a friend," she said, though again felt ashamed to shrug off the concept of Takemura as such. Ultimately, though - it wasn't any of Kerry's business. 

"Tell 'em you're not here right now," he said dismissively, stepping over to the bed and flopping down again. 

______

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Good morning! Today…may not be good for me. A little busy. I’m sorry. How about tonight?_ [10:24 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Yes. Yes, tonight will suffice._ [10:24 AM]

 _I apologize if I have bothered you._ [10:25 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _You could never bother me, Goro._ [10:25 AM]

 _Did you have a specific plan for meeting up?_ [10:25 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _I only wished to see you. I had no specific intentions. Your company is all I ask_. [10:26 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _I’m sorry I can’t meet you sooner. I really am so sorry. Just got tied up in something._ [10:26 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _It is no worry, V. We all have our responsibilities. I understand, and I do not hold it against you. I have matters of my own which need attending, all the same._ [10:27 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _So, tonight?_ [10:27 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _If this is alright with you. I do not wish to put you out of your way. With every meeting, we risk our safety. But I cannot say that I do not desire to spend these scarce moments at your side, foolhardy as they may be._ [10:28 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Come to my apartment tonight. Around six?_ [10:28 AM]

 _Would it be possible for you to stay over?_ [10:28 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Yes, this will be possible._ [10:29 AM]

 _I will come prepared for remaining in your company through the night._ [10:30 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _‘Prepared,’ you say? Hmm…_ [10:30 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Meaning that I will bring clothing to sleep in and necessary items such as a toothbrush. You never take my meaning, V._ [10:31 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _It wouldn’t be such a bad thing to be prepared in other ways._ [10:31 AM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _We will discuss this later._ [10:32 AM]

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Alright._ [10:32 AM]

 _Talk to you later._ [10:32 AM]

______

"Ready to get going?" Kerry asked, sitting up and stretching his arms towards the ceiling, then yawning. 

He hopped up and walked over to his own side of the bed, taking a pair of keys from a ceramic dish on the table and shaking them so she could see.

"Yeah," V said, sliding her phone into the right-hand pocket of the leather jacket and zipping it closed. "Ready."

Kerry, in a bid which V couldn't decide was the action of his normal self or some masculine attempt at impressing her, had chosen what was certainly the most expensive car in his collection for them to ride in. Some bright red number that V could barely conceptualize the likely cost of - not that she even wanted to. It was sporty and hideous; the perfect travelling companion for the rich and soulless. That wasn't to say that she saw Kerry that way, but she suspected he had either fallen into the routine of empty, performative wealth as he gained monetarily over the decades, or, more likely, felt the need to peacock his way into the upper-echelon of society by touting his eurodollars for all to see. 

“Gonna stop for breakfast on the way," Kerry had said, only his left hand on the wheel as his right lay at his side, occasionally fidgeting absentmindedly with the console between their two seats. 

Zipping down and out of North Oak, her newfound acquaintance had led them just a short few minutes back into the city, avoiding much of the early morning traffic by keeping to the right outer edge of the concrete metropolis. 

It was a brightly sort of day - a sunny lemon pie of yellow hung up in the sky - though the clouds out on the horizon of the Badlands suggested to V that rain may soon return, perhaps not that night - but certainly, the night which would follow.

Kerry pulled into a modest, familiar diner somewhere east of Japantown and parked in the lot surrounding it.

Every diner of this sort looked the same, and though she had never eaten at this particular one, V was comforted by its sameness. Sometimes, it was good for things to be predictable, because it promised a kind of comfortable reliability. 

The two of them made their way inside, and V took note of the fact that Kerry hadn't locked his car. She would've sooner been caught dead before she ever did that, not that her little red Makigai - goodness rest her poor soul - was much worth stealing. Well, actually, apparently it had been.

Kerry waved to the woman behind the register as they entered and walked to what was surely a booth which he was used to choosing, sliding into the seat and relaxing into it with a sense of routine. V followed suit, trailing him across the white and yellow tiled floor and entering the booth side opposite. 

The woman from the counter came to their table and placed two menus down in a neat stack and then passed by them with a friendly but nonchalant smile directed at Kerry - someone he clearly knew but who understood it best to not draw much attention towards him, not that he didn't already do that to himself.

“Oh,” Kerry said, grabbing the menu off the top and flipping it open, “you should try their coffee. It’s really good here.”

“You come here a lot?” V asked, picking up the second menu and moving it in front of her.

“Often as I can,” he said, distracted already by the words on the laminated pages pinched between his fingers. “Do my best. Great place.”

Taking a look around the room, mostly packed and bustling with the different conversations occurring around them at a scattering of other tables, V indulged in a quick sweep of the floor out of habit. Takemura’s instinctual scan of every building he stepped into had rubbed off, making her hyperaware of the possibility of being followed and watched at any given moment.

Turning back to Kerry, she asked, “Know anybody who works here?” as she tapped on the menu with the fingertips of her right hand. "Other than the woman behind the counter. I saw the way she looked at you."

“Friendly enough with ‘em,” he said with a small smirk, eyes still locked downwards. “Owners’re from Tel Aviv. Been here for three years. Nice family.”

V nodded and opened the cover of her menu to display a variety of photos of breakfast items alongside descriptions and prices; food that lay somewhere between American and Israeli.

Dressed in a yellow uniform with a white apron, an older woman with copper-colored hair - who wasn't the same woman as before - approached the table with a glass pot in one hand, two mugs in the other, and asked, “Coffee?”

“Yes, please,” V said, removing her hands and menu from the table respectfully to allow room for her to place the mugs down.

“Me too,” Kerry said, himself drawing his own hands back in mimic of what V had done.

She placed one cup in front of each of them and carefully poured up to about a half-inch from the top with coffee, which released transparent curls of steam upwards. 

“Thank you," V said, reaching out to pull hers closer to her.

“Ready to order?” the woman asked, pulling a pad and pen up and clicking the end of it.

“Not yet,” Kerry said automatically.

“I’ll give you a few minutes,” she said with a kind, motherly sort of smile, and repocketed her notes into the pouch of her apron before heading off down the row of booths behind V.

“She thinks we’re on a date,” Kerry said, reaching out for a packet of sugar and a tiny creamer to pour into his mug.

V picked up a creamer of her own and pulled the seal off, dumping the liquid contents into her coffee, and asked, “You think? How could you tell?”

Kerry crumpled the used sugar packet up and tucked it inside the plastic creamer cup, saying, “The way she looked from me to you when she came to the table. Thinks we’re on a date. And people only go on breakfast dates after spending the night together. Facts.”

“I think you need to find some more friends,” V said. “Friends that aren’t romantic.”

“Why d’you say that?”

“Don’t you ever hang out with anyone just for fun?”

Kerry smiled faintly, one which V couldn't discern, and then watched as he began turning his mug around to look down at it. 

“What’s on your mug?” he asked, reaching out to lightly spin his own around with his fingertips to show V. “Mine has an otter on it.”

V spun her own to see, and said, “Hedgehog."

Kerry nodded and began stirring his coffee with a long spoon. From a cup to her left, V took a straw from the provided clump of them and slid it from its paper holding, then dropped it into her own coffee.

With a bemused smile, Kerry asked, “Coffee through a straw?”

“Keeps it off your teeth,” V said.

He nodded thoughtfully and reached to open a straw of his own, slipping it into the mug. “Sounds like a good deal to me.”

Taking a first sip, V relaxed at the taste and feel of warmth in her mouth. She settled more comfortably in her seat.

“I love those sounds,” she commented, eyes shut for a moment, then open again.

His own eyes flicking around the room and back, Kerry asked, “Which sounds?”

“Clinking silverware,” she said. “Talking in the kitchen. Listening to bits and pieces of people’s conversations at the other tables. Early morning traffic outside. Reminds me of my aunt’s restaurant.”

“Your aunt has a restaurant?” he asked, taking a small sip of his own coffee. “We should go some time.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” V cast her eyes downwards at the table, back to the menu. “You being there might bring a little unwanted attention to the place. No offence.”

Kerry leaned back in his seat slightly at those words and said, “Nah, that’s fair.”

V returned to analyzing the menu, unsure how exactly to carry on a conversation. It had been a long time since last she had, quote-unquote, "made friends" with someone, and she was finding it difficult to remember the casual routines of what new, unfamiliar people were meant to say to one another. Jackie and Misty had been her only actual friends for so long that she had forgotten what it was like to start from scratch.

“Do you like me?” Kerry asked suddenly, stirring the straw around in his mug, its clear plastic fogged from the heat, the tip now slightly chewed between his fingertips. Clearly he wasn't sharing the same concern of reservedness as her.

“Like you?” V asked, puzzled. “Like…as a person?”

“Yeah!” he said, buzzing upwards lilt in his tone as he stacked a couple of creamers from a basket on the table into a pyramid. “Am I annoying?”

Reaching out to take a sugar packet, V said, “I mean…maybe,” and tore the packet open, pouring it between her lips onto her tongue and pressing the sugar crystals into the roof of her mouth as they dissolved.

“That’s fair,” he said with a decided, affirmative nod. “I can be pretty… _me_ …sometimes. I’m a lot, I know, I know…but, am I fun?”

Folding the paper of the sugar packet up and tucking it to the side, she offered, “Yeah. Plenty fun,” and reached for a creamer to add to Kerry’s pyramid.

“Plenty fun?” he repeated, eyeing her careful balancing act upon his project. “Hmm. I guess I can take that.”

Focused on not letting the stack fall, V had the tip of her tongue between her lips and mumbled, “Mhm,” through a closed mouth.

Reaching forward, Kerry returned to adding more creamers to the pyramid at the same time as V, asking, “Do you want to know what I think about _you?”_

She sat back in the seat, cushion squeaking in that distinctly rubbery way which diner booths characteristically did. Giving him a genuine consideration by staring at his face and looking for the answer he was clearly fishing for, she said, “Um…I don’t know. Do I?”

“I think you do,” he said simply, not looking at her and still focused on his little design.

“Okay,” she said, stirring her straw around in her coffee. “Then tell me.”

“I think you’re pretty cool,” he said, with enough conviction that it felt like somehow, he’d practiced that line to perfection. Like he’d been waiting for the perfect opportunity to drop the “pretty cool” bomb on her.

“That’s all?” she asked, pressing for any possible amount more to be stated about her character after one single day of him knowing it.

“That’s all.” Kerry nodded with that same unreadable goober grin that he was oh, so good at.

“Pretty cool,” V repeated, testing this assessment for herself. “Pretty cool?”

“Pretty cool,” Kerry confirmed simply, stirring his own straw around in his coffee cup like he didn’t think much of the younger girl in front of him, though a quick, nearly imperceptible quirk of his brow and eyes up at her in that moment said otherwise.

V didn’t press for more, because it wasn’t as though she had given Kerry much of an answer herself.

Sipping at their coffees filled the gaps in conversation which befell them between topics, dropping the level of comfortability in one another’s presence from full to none in a matter of a few awkward sideways glances across the table at the person opposite.

Kerry tapped his fingers against his mug and lightly bobbed his head as he watched the window to his right, lost in some song which V wasn’t a part of.

Thoughts running through her mind at a rabbit’s pace, V mushed all of the conflicting curiosities into a singular, “Why are you being nice to me?”

Pressing his menu flat against the table and closing it, Kerry leaned back in his seat and pulled his right leg up onto the cushion. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, thumbing over the handle on her mug. “I’m just a stranger. Why let me stay at your house? Why let me hang out with you? Take me to breakfast. I don’t get it. Any of it.”

“What’s not to get?” Kerry asked. “I’m not heartless. And, if I were in your shoes, I’d want somebody else to do for me what I’m doing for you.”

“So, you’re paying it forward,” she said, “like, karma or something?”

“No,” he said with a slight bite. “I’m being a good person.”

They stared blankly at one another for a few beats, sizing up their potential friend from over the yellow tabletop, though taking the words they’d breached on no further. Each dared the other to continue without saying so, and yet it was Kerry who broke the seconds-long showdown.

“I’m getting pancakes,” he said suddenly, deliberately changing the subject so that the tension slowly growing in the air would die down, and casting his eyes back to the window, fingers drumming aimlessly against his menu on the table. “What are you getting?”

“I’ll get some too,” V said quietly, putting her menu back at the table's edge and feeling like a bit of a chump at having accused Kerry of harboring ulterior motives.

Kerry, right leg still up on the seat and bent at the knee so he could rest his elbow on it, was paying her no mind. His other leg was shaking unconsciously beneath the table, and V could lightly feel it through the floor. He was staring out the window still, almost blankly, like he didn’t have a care in the world. V wished that she too could not have a single care.

Sipping through the very tip of her straw and looking down at the little hedgehog painted on her cup, she asked quietly, “Are we friends?”

“Of course we are,” Kerry said, distracted by a passing car traveling through the parking lot outside. “I already said that.”

“No, I mean. For real,” V said, watching him through her lashes as he stared out at the road. “You said it kind of like it was a joke, but I mean it for real. Are we friends?”

“V. We _are_ friends. I wouldn’t say that for nothin’.”

“Okay.”

“Doubt me?”

“Nope,” she said.

“Good, then,”

“Good,” she said back.

And that was that.

* * * * *

Traffic permitting, they arrived at the Night City Zoo by twelve forty-five. In their drive over, V had very importantly come to understand her "friend", Kerry, suffered from a massive case of fire-breathing road-rage, having been irrationally annoyed at the lines they inched their way through as they drove across the city.

Flying like a bat outta hell through the streets, V was gripping the edge of both sides of her seat like her life depended on it and clenching her body up as they drove; Kerry clearly not one to take it easy after decades of fame had provided him the fanciest and fastest vehicles.

They pulled into the parking lot to find it already filled about halfway with other vehicles of visiters, and parked as close as they possibly could. 

V, frazzled from the drive, looked to find that Kerry had flipped his attitude like a switch and was giving her that damn goofy smile again. She felt like her life had just flashed before her eyes and there he was looking at her like they'd just had a fun old time on a merry-go-round.

Stepping from the vehicle, the two of them walked with about a foot and a half's distance between them, close but not _too_ close, and far but not _too_ far.

V gave a look over her shoulder behind them, and asked, “Can you really go leaving a car like that out here? The diner was one thing, since you could see it out the window. But this is somethin' else."

“Got more.” He shrugged. “Don’t matter much to me.”

In Kerry’s mind, V was sure he meant this as a lack of attachment to material items, but to her poorer mind, it came across as complete dismissal of his own wealth. He was unbothered by the loss of his personal effects because he could always replace them, whereas V clutched every penny that fell from the cushions of her couch.

Kerry held the keys out to her as they walked to the entrance, a little golden skull with crystal eyes hanging from the chain. “Wanna hold onto ‘em?”

“Why?” she questioned. “Askin’ me to drive you home later? I don’t know about that. Never been behind the wheel of a car like that.”

“Free driving lessons,” he said.

“Don’t know if I’d want to accept those from the guy who just drove us here. Almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Who?” he asked, feigning offense. “Me?”

“Let’s just say I dropped my sphincter back at your house and it never caught up with us.”

“Oh, you gonk,” he said with a laugh, pushing against her arm lightly. “No fun at all.”

At the archway leading inside, they stopped at the ticket counter and paid their way into the park – to which V attempted to take care of it and Kerry intercepted her, just as he had earlier that morning at the diner before they’d left. She didn’t want him to think she was just mooching off of him for a free day out on the city, but he jumped in at every instance to handle the finances himself.

The woman working the booth stamped the back of their hands with a little red elephant and held out a map to the area, detailing the locations of the habitats in the zoo, which Kerry grabbed with thanks.

They made their way in and stopped to take a look at the map, Kerry unfolding and holding it up for them both to see and each taking a careful look at it in silence. 

“Oh, V,” Kerry said suddenly, pointing towards the giftshop at their immediate right, a few meters away. “Look.”

Passing from inside the building out into the park was a line of little kids, all wearing red shirts and holding hands with one another as they walked. Most likely a kindergarten class on a field-trip.

“Oh,” she said, tension easing once again. “So cute.”

Tapping the map lightly, Kerry asked, “So. Where should we start?”

“How about we go from the left and follow the path up this way?" V trailed her fingertips along the indicated circular line. "Clockwise.”

"Sounds good to me," Kerry said. "Let's get to it then."

For a good ten minutes, the two of them spoke little to nothing to one another, Kerry distracted - willfully or not - and V just a bit too flustered at the forced interaction she was having to make due with in the company of this random person she had met only yesterday. She knew why she was avoiding him, but she wasn't sure yet why he was avoiding her, given his near overbearing excitement at the prospect of Johnny in her brain.

They made their way through the lions, gorillas, elephants, and penguins before her unwitting companion made so much as a single peep in her direction. 

“What’s your favorite animal, V?” Kerry asked, creased paper map open in front of him as they walked along the cobblestone path, his eyes running across the location photos of the habitats.

“Oh,” she said, pausing momentarily at the question and blanking. “Uh, well…I’m not sure.”

“Not sure!” he exclaimed. “How can you be ‘not sure’?”

“Well, I…I like them all, I guess.”

“Nu-uh, too noncommittal. Have to have a favorite.”

“Okay,” she said, catching up to him. “If you're so sure, then what’s yours?”

“Kookaburra.”

“Oh.” She paused in her step again and watched him continue on a few feet, stepping forward to the golden monkey enclosure which they'd arrived at, wrapped with a fencing of glossy bamboo. “Not what I expected.”

Kerry placed a hand upon the rail and looked back to her, a slight smile apparent, and asked, “What did you expect?”

“Wolves or mountain lions,” she told him, “or something.”

“I’m a bird guy, what can I say.”

“Ever had one for a pet?”

“Long time ago, when I was a kid. Had a parrot.”

“Really?” she questioned, stepping to his side and placing her hands upon the bamboo railing. “Could it talk?”

Chuckling to himself, surely at the memory, he said, “A little bit. It’d get stuck on the things you didn’t want it to remember and wouldn’t learn the ones you did.”

Within the netting of the habitat, at least a dozen of the primates native to Southern China jumped and darted about along a series of branched trees which allowed them a fair amount of room to, well, monkey around. V smiled to herself at the thought and an unconscious rush of breath released from her nose. Kerry looked at her and then looked back. 

“Changed my mind,” he said, gesturing towards the meshed netting with his right hand. “These guys are my favorite.”

“Thought you were so sure earlier about the kookaburra," she pointed out.

“Well, I forgot about these little guys!”

“They are pretty cute," she said.

“Pretty cute? _V._ These things? Cutest little dudes I’ve ever seen.”

“My dad loved them," she stated as the memory came to her. "Said they reminded him of being home again. His mom – my grandmother – was a conservationist; worked with them in the mountains. But she passed away, a long time before I ever met her.”

“You been here a lot?” Kerry asked. “To the zoo, I mean.”

“Used to,” she said with a little nod, looking at him and then back to the exhibit. “When I was younger. With my family.”

Kerry made an affirmative sound, and V turned her head towards him again, catching sight of what she supposed could only have been a reaction to the mention of family. So she asked, encouragingly, “What about you?”

He let a hearty breath blow from his mouth in sigh, and admitted, “Not as much as I want to.” Paused. Thought. Hesitated on perhaps the extent to which he would share. “Don’t get out much.”

"I get that," she said, though was unsure what more to add. She didn't want to become his unwilling counselor. 

Kerry stepped away from the railing and gave her a small smile which told her to continue along the path with him.

“Thank you for comin’ here with me,” he said a few short minutes later. “Know it…might not seem like much, but…not a lotta people I know would’ve said yes. Least of all, Johnny.”

“I know I was kind of joking, before…but…I really do think you might be hanging out with the wrong people," V said. "If they’re not interested in what you are, then they’re not worth your time, Kerry.”

“Thank you, V.”

They reached the next exhibit - the tigers, and stepped into a glass pavilion which allowed for closer viewing.

Leaning against the window, V asked quietly, “What can you tell me about Johnny?”

Kerry let out a kind of short, snort of a laugh, loud and deliberate enough that it caught V’s attention. “What _couldn’t_ I tell you about Johnny?” 

V crinkled her face and asked, "That bad?"

“Well…" Kerry said. "Would you say you hate him or would you say you like him?”

Gazing out over the forest below which the tigers were surely hiding in, V said, “Why ask that?”

“Because if you hate him, he’s probably been pretty honest. If you like him? Then he’s probably been lyin’ to ya.”

“What if I don’t feel either of those?” she asked.

“Hmm…then I think I’d say you already know ‘im pretty well, if you don’t want to kill him and you haven’t blown him yet. If that’s even possible.” His eyes flicked briefly over to V. _“Is_ that possible?”

“I can touch him," she said. "If that’s what you’re asking. Weird, though. Since it’s all in my head.”

“Sounds preem.”

“Are those the only two categories for Johnny’s relationships?" V asked. "Want him dead or want to sleep with him?”

Kerry shrugged. “He never was much for people. And the people he _was_ for, well…let’s say he got around and leave it at that. Definitely some, uh, mommy issues there. Bag a’ cats up there in his brain I never fuckin’ cracked.”

“What about you?" V gave him a confused look. "Weren’t you his best friend?”

“Don’t think Johnny ever actually had any chooms. Least not ones he gave a damn about. Me? Well…I dunno.”

“He told me you were his best friend.”

“He said that?" Kerry turned away from her and looked down at nothing for a moment. "Hm.”

Continuing on their tour around - again drowned by awkward waves of silence that washed over them like an embarrassing first date - they made their way past the polar bears, mountain lions, wolves, and onwards through the dark house which homed the nocturnal animals.

Circling near to the front, V realized just how small the zoo was, a realization which lay in distinct contradiction to her childhood memories of the place. Surely her young mind had remembered it differently when the world seemed so big, and she, so small - but in a lot of ways, V wanted to imagine that the zoo truly had shrunk. That the wider world which surrounded her life had actually become smaller as she, herself, grew larger. 

At the end, there was only one exhibit left, to which V decided in regard towards them, “Orangutans. That’s my favorite.”

“Good choice,” Kerry said, stepping to her side to watch the primates move around within their enclosure. “I like that.”

“Makes me so sad,” she said, eyes directed at one which was alone by himself near the glass. She caught its eyes, all beady and black. “The way they sit in there, like they know. Not right.”

“Like they know what?" Kerry asked. He gave a small yawn and ran his hand absentmindedly over his necklace again. 

She kept her eyes locked on the animal opposite her which looked back blankly.

"That it isn't fair," she said.

* * * * *

“You wanna come back to my place again?" Kerry asked as they made their way back to his car - which was not stolen, to V's surprise. "We could listen to that new Tainted Overlord album together. Or something. Or whatever. It’s cool.”

Keys in hand, V asked, "You still want me to drive?"

"Fuck yeah!" he said, eyes brightening at her words as he ducked into the passenger's seat and waited for her to join him.

Climbing into the front and adjusting herself behind the wheel, she placed her hands upon it to test how it felt. 

"Like it?" Kerry asked expectantly.

"Honestly?" she said with a laugh of disbelief. "Despise it."

Kerry howled a hearty chuckle and punched her in the shoulder, pulling his feet up into the seat - shoes off - and reclining back. "Take us home, V. Full speed ahead."

"Alright," she said, placing the key in the ignition and giving it a turn, to which it purred to life beneath her fingertips. "Don't say I didn't warn you, though."

She pressed down on the gas and jolted forward, sending them jerking towards the dashboard. 

"Sorry," she said. "Or not, if you thought that was fun."

"Potential for death is _always_ a good time, V. Don't you worry about me."

Stopping and starting her way all the distance back to the entrance to the parking lot, V slowly came to understand the workings of the car's speed, settling on a somewhat hesitant medium to take them out into the streets of Night City. 

“Want to get coffee before we head back?” Kerry asked, his eyes cast out the window at his side, lost in wanderlust. He was clearly elsewhere in his mind, but V wasn't going to ask him about it.

“Okay,” she agreed. “Sounds good.”

“Johnny used to always have coffee after a gig," Kerry said. "No matter what. Whether we were high, drunk, and nearly deaf from the music – a good gig was never over until we had a shitty black coffee in our hands.”

"So, shitty black coffee is what we're looking for?" V asked. 

"No fucking way," he said with a laugh. "Hated that shit. We're looking for a place that serves the milkiest, sweetest lattes possible. Johnny can go sip on that black tar shit in his grave. Not me."

Searching for a drive-up café that looked as gooey and unhealthy as possible, they settled on a building that had a giant piece of cake on top and both said, _"That one."_

Back at Kerry's, V fumbled her way into the driveway, with Kerry holding both coffees in his hands like it was a professional sport to keep them from spilling. 

"Driving lessons have been added to the docket of things to teach V," he said as they exited the vehicle. "Jot that down."

"That bad?" she asked, accepting her coffee cup from him as he crossed behind the car to her side. 

"Serviceable," he remarked, then added, "I do have a good sixty years on you. Can't judge you too much."

"Here's the keys back," V said, holding them out with the silver skull dangling downwards. 

Kerry reached out and grabbed them, slipping them into the front pocket of his jeans with a quick, "Thanks."

"So...what now?" she asked. 

Kerry, taking a sip from his cup, gestured with his occupied hand, "Let's sit out on the grass for a while. Listen to the album another time. Just wanna be outside."

The two of them crossed out onto the perfectly coifed yard and took a seat upon the plush ground, Kerry on the left and V on the right. 

This far from the city, they couldn't escape the sounds of the metropolis entirely, but it did offer a sense of peaceful solitude which was as close to Badlands living as someone still within the bounds of Night City could attain. Though she would never choose to live there herself, she was coming to understand why Kerry did. 

“What flavor was yours again?” he asked suddenly.

“White chocolate," she said.

“Mind if I try?” he asked.

“Not at all." She handed to cup to him. "Go ahead.”

He took a small sip and paused to decide how he felt about the taste, then handed it back to her.

“Oh, that one’s good," he said. "Want to try mine?”

“Sure," she said, and repeated his action, taking the cup into her hand and having a small sip. "Oh, yours is good too.”

She handed it back and he held it between both hands, then commented, “I think I like yours better.”

"Wanna switch?" she asked, and he nodded. She'd expected him to politely insist she keep hers, but he didn't. Somehow she appreciated the honesty, and handed her own off to him as he gave her his.

“Clouds are building up," Kerry remarked randomly, eyes to the sky. V nodded. 

“So,” she said, twisting the top off of what was now her cup and checking inside to see how much it had left. Almost all. “What’s life like for Kerry Eurodyne?”

At her side, he chuckled, saying, “Kerry Eurodyne…or Kerry?”

She placed the lid back on the cup, and asked, “Not the same thing?”

“Not by a fucking mile.”

“Alright, then. Tell me what it’s like for Kerry Eurodyne first.”

“Eh, that fucker?” He took a drink. “Well. _Damn_ full of himself. Total sellout. Not breakin’ his back for the music like he used to.”

“Uh-huh. And Kerry?”

“Confused. Tired. Alone.”

She nodded through his words and sipped from her cup, not punctuating his words with unwanted advice, and instead allowing them to breathe.

“When Johnny’s back," Kerry continued, "can you…can you tell him that…that I don’t hold it against him. All that…all that shit from back then. Total history.”

“Okay," she said. "I’ll tell him.”

“And…and tell him thanks.”

“For what?” she asked.

“For poppin’ into your head." He leaned into her shoulder. "Bringin’ you here. Coulda been any gonk out there. Glad it was you.”

V busied herself in her drink, trying to think of what a person could possibly say to something like that. She was here because Johnny had needed it, even if it was nearly impossible to get him to ask for things. But for V? Well. Kerry was as much an impossible best friend from some distant dream scape as he was a complete stranger with whom she shared little in common. It was a difficult divide. One which she was unsure could ever become a true best friendship.

“A sense of self can’t grow in isolation," V said suddenly, bobbing her head lightly at the words that were both for her and from her.

“What?” Kerry asked, pulled from his own thoughts. "What's that?"

“Sometimes...you need other people to remind you that you’re real," she said, "that you have an impact on the world. Take me. _I’d_ notice if you were gone.”

“Gee…thanks," he said with a short laugh. "The bare minimum is as good as it gets with you?"

“You know what I mean," she said, and he relented.

“I do," he said softly. "And...thanks. Just feel so damn...guilty...about what I do to people. That's why I stay away from them. I ruin everything."

“Maybe...you don’t have to feel that way all the time,” V said. “I could help you deal with it, help…make it easier on you. Patch things up all the way with Johnny. Maybe...put a little something together with Samurai.”

“Don’t bother,” Kerry said flatly. “Regret suits me just fine.”

V shrunk at this and curled in on herself slightly, again reminded of all that remained strange and foreign about this connection, of all that she didn't know or understand about the man at her side.

“What’s the one thing you want to hear the most?” Kerry asked.

“That it’s possible," V said immediately. 

Kerry made a sound of surprise. “That what is?” he asked.

“That things can become exactly what I hoped they would."

“Well, I hope you get your wish. Live life like you’ve already gotten what you wanted…” He took a sip from his coffee and held it tightly in the palms of his hands. “And nobody can take that away from you.”

“Do you...do you need a dream to be happy?” she asked, rubbing her thumb along the lid of her cup.

Kerry didn’t respond, not immediately, and V knew that he was thinking about what he would say.

After some time’s pause, he finally settled on a simple, “No. I don’t think so.”

He reached out with his right hand to brush against hers where she was holding her cup, gaining her attention towards him, and then asked, “Why? Do you not have one?”

“I used to dream about so much,” she said. “A fulfilling job. Happy friends. A meaningful relationship. Maybe a family, someday. Now I just want to stay alive.”

“Sometimes that’s all we can do,” he said, placing his cup to the side and leaning back on the palms of his hands. He looked out to the hills surrounding the property. “Keep living.”

“What about you?” she asked.

“What about me?”

“Do... _you_ have dreams?”

“These days…" He sighed. "Dunno. Think I’m just takin’ it one day at a time.”

“One day at a time, yeah," she said. "That’s how I feel.”

From the side of her leather jacket, V felt the buzz of her phone. Placing her coffee into the grass, she unzipped and opened the pocket. 

______

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _Is the invitation to meet still in place?_ [4:58 PM]

______

“Kerry," she said suddenly, looking from her phone and up to him at her side. "I’m really sorry to go, but I actually need to get home soon.”

“Oh!” he exclaimed, sitting up and stretching his arms out in front of him, then rolling his shoulders. “No problem, V. You want a ride back?”

“That would be nice,” she said, “but then my bike would be left here.”

“I can bring it by for you later, if you want. Or you could keep it here as a promise you’ll come back.”

“Do you think I won’t?” she asked curiously. 

“Dunno." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "Spent the day with Kerry Eurodyne. Probably got your face in the papers. Got what you wanted.”

“You’re not Kerry Eurodyne," V stated. "You’re just Kerry. And I _will_ be back. You said yourself that we’re friends, so. Why would I not come back?”

“Mm." Kerry shook it off and reached down to pick up his coffee from the grass. "Just my insecurity talkin’. Let me go bring the car around.”

______

 **From: V** **🌸**

 _Yes!_ [5:02 PM]

 _See you soon?_ [5:02 PM]

 **From: Takemura** **😱**

 _As planned._ [5:04 PM]

 _I have freed my schedule indefinitely._ [5:04 PM]

 _The support we have recently gained has given more license to meet freely. Less threat of death at every angle, yes?_ [5:06 PM]

 _Unless a certain prodigal son arrives to slaughter us._ [5:06 PM]

 _I am referring to Yorinobu, if you do not know this meaning._ [5:06 PM]

 _Please delete that message in the event they have tapped our phones._ [5:07 PM]

 _If that were true, though, I suppose we would already have had our limbs tossed to the streets._ [5:08 PM]

 _I will stop now. See you soon._ [5:08 PM]

______

“Ready to go?” Kerry asked, coming back into view, footsteps softly crisp upon the grass as he approached from her left. He held out a large woven bag. “I put your things in this. You can keep it. I also put my number in there, on a piece of paper.”

“Oh, thank you!” she said, and stuck her right hand out to him. “Help me up?”

Pulling her from the ground, he gave her a friendly pat on the back, and then she brushed the grass from her pants before following him back to the car.

"Where do you live?" he asked, approaching the vehicle at the driver's side.

“I live in Watson,” she said. “Megabuilding H10.”

“Ah, yeah,” Kerry said, popping the driver’s seat forward and taking V’s bag, tucking it into the back, and then pushing his seat into place once more. “I know the one.”

The two of them re-entered the vehicle and Kerry pulled out of the driveway onto the street in front of his house, winding back down into the same old hustle and bustle.

“How long you been in the city?” he asked, eventually turning into Japantown and pausing at a red light.

“Whole life,” she said, but added somewhat vaguely, “Well, mostly.”

“Complicated?” Kerry asked; a recurring theme.

“Complicated,” she concluded.

They drove in silence again after that, V staring out the window the whole time and taking note in her head that Kerry was driving distinctively more sane this time around, her comments clearly having had an effect on him. 

When they arrived at her apartment, he parked across the street in what was clearly a no-parking zone, and V quickly climbed out of the car and walked around to the driver's side. Kerry rolled down the window and passed the yellow bag out to her.

“Thank you," she said, taking it into her arms to find that it was rather weighty. "I had a nice day."

"Me too, V," he said, but she could sense a distinct distance from him. 

"Well," she said. "See you later?"

“Yeah," he said back. I’ll be seein’ ya, V.”

She turned to cross the street to her building, but before she could go, Kerry spoke again.

 _“Wait,"_ he called out, and V swiveled back around to see what was up.

“Yeah?” she asked.

Ducking to search about the backseat momentarily, Kerry returned to sitting up straight, now with a piece of clothing in his hands. “Here,” he said, and held it up for her to see.

It was an old Samurai tour jacket; large red and black logo patches sewn across its surface. Based on some basic internet searching V had done in the past after Johnny had come into her life, she knew this was something most likely worth thousands, especially having been owned by one of the band members themselves.

“Oh, Kerry,” V said. “You don’t need to do that. It’s yours.”

“It was Johnny’s,” he said, pausing on the speaking of that name as a mental hurtle in the road, before continuing with, “Then mine. And now, it’s yours. Take care of it. And yourself.”

Holding it out to her, well-folded, he waited expectantly for her to take it. Stepping forward, she accepted the dark-wash jean jacket carefully into her hands and dipped her head towards him in an unspoken expression of gratitude.

Backing away, coat now draped over her left forearm, she gave a small wave in his direction. “You too, Kerry,” she said, hesitating at the curb. “Take care of yourself, too.”

“Always do, V,” he said, turning the wheel to the left and beginning to pull away, left hand out the window and motioning goodbye with a vague flutter of his fingers. “Always do.”


End file.
